


The Stark Effect

by Saccharine_Riddle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Iron Man - Fandom, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, BAMF Hermione, Gen, Multiple Pairings, Pepperoni, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-02 00:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saccharine_Riddle/pseuds/Saccharine_Riddle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the girl who might have been Hermione Granger is raised as Tony Stark's daughter, and the world is that much closer to imploding spontaneously. One know-it-all Stark was enough, thank you.<br/>Mostly relies on the events of the movies, with some comic book references mostly pertaining to characters who don't have their own movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Own Mini Monster

**Author's Note:**

> First off, this story is mostly Harry Potter/Avengers However, there's going to be some cases where this story is more Harry Potter/ Marvel Universe. There will be XMen, there will be Spiderman. There will be...oh, I dunno. Deadpool's badass, maybe him. Maybe I should make this a vote.  
> Also, I'm aware that I'm really screwing around with their ages. It was necessary. I wanted Hermione to be fifteen-ish by the time all of this Iron Man stuff starts happening, one so that you could get some father-daughter relationship fluffy stuff before people start dropping dead, two do I can get most of the HP plot out of the way, and three, because daughter-of-weapons-designer-Hermione-who-shoots-spells-as-well-as-multiple-weapony-type-things is badass AKA I want her to be semi involved with the action.  
> This is gonna be so much fun!

The Stark Effect  
Prologue: His Own Mini Monster  
"No, you hear me Tony? You are not allowed to do this!"  
Pepper Potts shouted through the phone.  
Tony flinched, holding the cell away from his ear as he shifted a swaddled bundle cradled on his left arm.  
A smallish, pink, baby-sized bundle.  
A smallish, pink, baby-sized bundle that was snoring softly.  
Oh god. Who gave Tony Stark a baby?!  
"Geez Potts, I just got her to go to sleep, can you not shout?"  
"Shout? You don't want me to shout Anthony Stark?! You haven't even heard shouting yet! You skip a mandatory meeting and come back with a baby, and you don't want me shouting! When I get over there, you will learn what shouting really is! Webster will put my goddamn picture next to the definition of shouting when I get through with you!" She raged, hanging up the phone with what was probably the angriest click he had ever heard.  
Tony looked down, and sure enough, the baby girl had woken up, big, curious brown eyes looking up at him.  
"I think she likes you," he said with an easy smirk.  
_later_  
“Are you kidding me? You can’t take care of a baby!”  
“Why not? Everything I don’t know, you can teach me!”  
“Why would you want to?”  
“Why not? She’s biologically mine, her mother is dead. Who better to take care of my daughter than her father?”  
Pepper gave him a look.  
“Considering that you- Anthony Stark, billionaire playboy and overall dick head- are her father, that statement is extremely debatable.  
“Hey don’t call me that in front of Minnie! You’ll corrupt her impressionable. beautiful brain!”  
“Minnie?”  
“Well the letter says her name is Hermione, and that’s about three syllables too much for my taste- the kid will be lucky if she can pronounce her own name! So Minnie it is!”  
“This is a big mistake Tony-”  
“Say what you want, but even you can’t resist those big brown eyes,” he insisted, hold up the baby for her to see.  
She did have big brown eyes. They were the color of chocolate, and they were wide and curious as she looked at the bickering couple.  
“I still can’t believe this. I know you can’t keep it in your pants Tony, but aren’t you notoriously strict about using protection?”  
Tony shrugged.  
Accidents happen, and the paternity test confirmed. Besides, I could use someone cute to come home to after work,” he said, a goofy grin on his face.  
Pepper glared at him.  
He smirked back.  
“Are you kidding Potts? You’re not cute. You’re sexy and amazing.”  
She rolled her eyes.  
"I have to admit Tony, this is stupid even for you," Rhodey said calmly, keeping the baby out of harm's way, while Pepper raged at him silently, too angry for words.  
"Wow, such nice things to say to the genius who has you both on his payroll," Tony muttered, trying not to smile as Pepper stuttered angrily.  
"Hey, I'm only part time, and that's just because the Army doesn't trust you as far as they could shoot you. Besides, you could never fire either of us. Pepper would kick your ass.  
"Damn, you got me, but really, I'm the bad guy for wanting to save a baby? You act like I got caught throwing puppies off Goldengate bridge or something, and besides, you know you can't resist those big brown eyes either, so don't demonize me for falling for it."  
"But why Tony? Why now, do you suddenly want a kid? You hate children, remember? You said all kids were assholes just last month, remember?"  
"You seem to forget the part where the little bastard called me a faggot and kicked me in the nuts, so sorry for making a generalization in a fit of rage."  
"Tony-"  
"Look, you guys, I appreciate your concerns, but I'm not letting up on this. I don't know why I care so much. I just do. I want her to have the world if she asks for it. She deserves that much." He said, almost solemnly, before picking up the giggling baby and leaving the room.  
Pepper looked shocked, but Rhodey just shrugged.  
"Just let him win this one Potts. Maybe Tony needs some responsibility."  
“I don’t get paid enough for this.”  
Hours later, Pepper found him in the bathroom, laughing with the baby as the unlikely pair splashed and blew bubbles in sink.  
"I don't understand you," she said finally.  
He looked up with an easy smirk on his face.  
"You're not supposed to. I'm a genius, remember?"  
"And I don't know what the hell you were-"  
"Hey, watch the language in front of Minnie," he interrupted, giving her a teasing look.  
She grimaced, but quickly got over it, smiling at Minnie with a grin that clearly read "you're so lucky you're cute."  
"Well then, I guess congratulations are in order. Welcome to the family, Sweetheart," she said endearingly, kissing the baby's forehead and leaving to make arrangements to have a nursery decorated.  
Tony took to Parenthood like he did anything else, like a duck to water. There were...incidents, like "The Great Diaper Catastrophe of 97, as he called it, and in 2000 the mess little Minnie caused when her adopted father found out that intelligence and a penchant for trouble were two things the pair of them had in common (it took him a month to un-encrypt those files). But like he had promised, he gave her everything she needed and then some. By Minnie's sixth birthday, it was nearly impossible to give her anything Tony hadn't already.  
Tony gave Minnie everything. If she wanted to play in the lab, she could. If she wanted to try the missiles, she could. Pepper called it bad parenting, Tony called it “encouraging her talents”. So when Hermione started school, which was a tragedy in and of itself, and it was quickly realized that Minnie had no tolerance for idiots, her Kindergarten teacher being the unlucky victim of this policy. The Stark heiress took her punishment like a little soldier, but maintained that the woman deserved it- "She didn't even know what a logarithm was!!" She protested.  
With her inability to peacefully interact with anyone who couldn't speak grammatically correct, it was quickly determined that regular school was out of the question. So instead Tony gave her private tutors, and taught her the various sciences personally, in his lab.  
Hermione Stark was too smart for her own good. Pepper thought so. Rhodey thought so. Happy thought so. Did Tony care? No. He was too busy being smitten with his “genius little girl”. As she grew up, they took to calling her Mini Stark, since Tony rarely called her by her given name, and the little girl was too much like her father for it to be healthy. By the time she was five, the father and daughter had developed the habit of falling asleep together in the lab, Tony wrapped around his little girl on the day bed he’d put in there.  
And those were the times that Pepper realized that apparently on complete accident, Tony had managed to do right by that little girl.


	3. Needs a Warning Label

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search is on the find Peter and Minnie, and I would put something here about "Will they find the kids in time?" but come on, you know they will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg guys, the reviews were on the money. Well most of them.  
> About tracking chips, and reflexive magic, there is an explanation! I promise! And magic will come into play, but I think it'll be even more interesting seeing the other characters' reactions.  
> As for Peter and Minnie, this is a multipairing story anyways. Pretty much everyone is going to end up liking more than one person by the time it's all said and done. So even if they got together/had crushes on each other, there's no guarantee it'll last. But it's too early for that anyways! Relax guys!  
> Luckily, the cuteness comes back after this chapter! For a little while! Sort of! XD I also have an outtake in the works, so woo!  
> Another thing- just so you know, I know absolutely nothing about New York City. Oops. Sorry. I live in Florida, I've never even been in the state, let alone the city, so please excuse me if my descriptions are frigging awful.  
> Oh, and did I really say he was her biological & adoptive father? Oops. He's supposed to be her biological father.  
> It was mentioned that I need a beta: Yeah, probably. Any takers?  
> And finally I'm on AO3 now! Find me under Saccharine_Riddle, if you care. :D

Four years ago.  
Tony sighed good naturedly as he picked his four year old daughter off of the display she'd been sitting on. Which was now displaying a blue error screen he'd only ever heard of before.  
"Geez kid, do you have to break all of my toys before I get to use them?" He teased as she giggled.  
The brand new Starktop Holo was supposed to be indestructible to anything shy of one of his ballistic missiles, yet Hermione, who wasn't even three feet tall, could still render it inoperable without even trying. Which was bad, because she was the main one he was trying to protect it from.  
Childproofing where Hermione was concerned was something Tony was quickly discovering was fairly impossible. She quickly learned how to get past those gates you put on staircases, managed to hide in the most out of the way, impossible nooks and crannies in his house- on top of the fridge being a notable example- and get into all of his dangerous equipment, all of it locked away for that very reason. All of this apparently managed to happen in the split second he'd take her eyes off of her. Next he knew, she would be sitting on the chandelier in the entryway, or something equally impossible.  
Then it was his lab. Well no, everything electronic in his lab, and everywhere else too. If Minnie touched it, it was guaranteed to at least freeze up until she put it down.  
Quite a few more sensitive devices nearly blew up in her hands. Which was becoming a serious problem.  
It was a shame. The girl could be really good- she learned exceptionally fast. But she wouldn't have much of a future in the business if the Minnie touch didn't go away.  
So Tony turned to one of his connections.  
A man named Charles Xavier.

The bald man knew how to arrive in style. He appeared, right in Tony's foyer, accompanied by a guy with a coat of blue fur and a wicked tail.  
"Professor Xavier," he greeted, holding out his hand.  
Xavier took it.  
"It's very good to see you Anthony. This is my student, Kurt Wagner.  
Tony shook his hand too, forcing down the very strong impulse to start questioning Wagner about his capabilities. This was about Hermione after all.  
"Now, explain to me what you believe little Hermione can do."  
Tony shrugged.  
"Everything electronic goes haywire if she touches it, and she has a habit of…disappearing. She's getting way too good at hide and seek," he said with a smirk.  
"Let’s see for ourselves then," Charles said, gesturing for Tony to lead the way.  
"Minnie, where are you?" He asked as he lead them through the house.  
Charles noticed several large pillows placed conspicuously underneath the chandelier, the balcony, even a hanging lamp.  
"Up here, Daddy!"  
They heard from the left, and turning to look saw the little brown haired girl balancing on top of a crane-like device inside what could only be Tony's lab.  
"Minnie, hold on! I'll-"  
Hermione was slowly lifted in the air and placed gently on the ground.  
Tony turned, expecting to see Charles with his hand to his temple in concentration. Instead the older man looked pleasantly surprised.  
Minnie ran up and hugged Tony, smiling up at him brightly.  
"Hi Daddy," she greeted.  
Tony sighed, then grinned.  
"Minnie, this is Professor Xavier, and his friend, Mr. Wagner."  
The girl looked like she'd won the lottery when she saw Kurt.  
"Wow! Mr., did you know you're my favorite color?"  
She squealed, grabbing his hand in hers.  
He looked down at her in surprise, while Charles laughed.  
"Err… thank you?" the mutant said uncomfortably, before gently removing her hands and stepping back. With a meaningful glance at Charles, he disappeared, leaving Hermione even more awed.  
Xavier smiled, and shook his head.  
"Miss Stark, you are a very incredible young lady," Charles said, earning a grin from the cheerful little thing.  
"You know Hermione; you gave your Daddy quite the scare a minute ago,"  
He mentioned.  
Obviously, she had had this conversation before, because she sobered immediately.  
"I know…I don't do it on purpose, I promise!"  
He smiled at her kindly, and touched her shoulder.  
"I know child, I know. Still, it's very dangerous."  
She nodded resolutely, understanding.  
"Hermione, could you maybe explain to me how you do it?"  
She bit her lip.  
"I don't know…I just…think about it, and it happens.  
He smiled at her reassuringly.  
"How do you feel when this happens?"  
She frowned contemplatively.  
"All fuzzy…and warm, like I'm flying. And tingly, like…static!" She realized, grinning at the connotation.  
Charles' eyes widened with recognition.  
"Little one, would you excuse me for a moment while I talk with your father?"  
She pouted, likely having heard this many time before, but nodded, running off, likely to get into even more trouble.

"Well? Tony asked when he walked back in.  
"What do you think?"  
"One last question, do you have any other family that had the X gene?"  
Tony shook his head.  
"Not that I know of. I had a great Uncle who was on the weird side, but definitely no mutants.  
Charles nodded with understanding.  
"It will not be necessary to send her to my school, Tony. Your daughter is no mutant."  
Tony didn't look all that convinced.  
"Come on now Charles, I think it's agreed that teleportation isn't something people can normally do."  
The elder man grinned.  
Tony saw this and frowned, puzzled.  
"What are you saying Minnie is, Charles?"  
"Mr. Stark, that wonderful little girl is a witch," he said.  
Tony blinked, opened his mouth to say "No, that's not possible," but thought about it and realized yes, yes it was.  
"What do you suggest I do?"  
Professor Charles Xavier smiled.  
"You know Wanda Maximoff, correct?"  
End Flashback

"I don't get it, Stark. I figured a guy like you would have a tracer on your kid, give 'em a cell phone at least. This has happened before, hasn't it?"  
Tony nodded tensely as he worked to enhance the photo of Minnie's kidnappers.  
He would've laughed, in another situation, recalling the time he actually had tried to give her a tracking bracelet.  
The tracking device had been fried beyond repair before he got a lock on her location even once, unable to locate her even when he was standing right next to her. Even after a several years of practice, any device that was constantly in close proximity to her tended to have a very short…shelf life. He'd been in the process of developing ways to work around this- on the verge of a breakthrough even, but he hadn't finished yet. Not by a longshot.  
Tony glanced up when a monitor on the wall lit up.  
Pepper was standing behind a podium, holding a press conference for what must have been the third time today, a mob of reporters surrounding her, all clamoring for her attention.  
"Ms. Potts, have there been any leads in finding Hermione Stark?"  
"Why doesn't she have bodyguards?"  
"Why isn't Tony here?!"  
Pepper sighed visibly, and then cleared her throat loudly.  
"Please, one question at a time," she said, her words polite, but Tony smirked as he watched her. Oh, they were going to get it.  
"Mr. Stark is a very active part of the current investigation, I'm sure you all understand that his and everyone else's priority is rescuing Hermione, and Peter," she said carefully, reminding the vapid media that there had in fact been two children abducted.  
The Media Liaison for the Police department stepped forward then, taking control of the conversation.  
Tony turned his attention back to the computer, and sighed. No, nothing yet.  
"We're asking the public to watch out for any suspicious persons moving in the city," the blonde woman was saying. "We believe that the perpetrators have taken the children to a place within the city- an abandoned building, a warehouse, where they are likely to be undisturbed.  
We have confirmation that at last sighting, Hermione Stark and Peter Parker were being transported in a black Cadillac Escalade, the model year being fairly recent- 2002 at the oldest. If you see any vehicles matching this description, please call the NYPD."  
The conference ended, and Tony moved to turn off the television.  
"Hey Stark, what's this mean?"  
Tony glanced up, and when he saw the flashing blue icon on his monitor, a devious smirk making it's way onto his face.  
"It means I know who has my daughter," he said, typing with more ferocity than before.

"Where do you think they're taking us?" Peter whispered, craning his neck to see out the windows.  
The kidnappers were talking loudly in the front seats, as if they didn't have two kids hogtied in the back of the SUV, where no one could easily see in and they definitely couldn't see out.  
Hermione thought for a moment.  
"Whoever paid them to do this had connections, and money. Chances are they'd have access to somewhere out of the way, well secured. A warehouse, a factory maybe, where a lot of vehicles going in and out won't be noticed right away. Nobody would notice us getting brought in," No way of getting themselves out.  
"So what do we do?"  
"We wait, see what they want. If they're soft, they'll probably leave us alone while they put out a ransom notice, which will be plenty of time for my Dad to find us," she said, knowing full well that'd be unlikely.  
Chances were, Peter would die as soon as they got there, because they didn't /need/ him. Then they'd beat her, break a couple bones, threaten to take off a finger or two, all so that when they sent word of how much they wanted, her Dad would know exactly how scared his little girl was.  
Peter was staring at her.  
"What?"  
"How often does this happen to you?"  
She bit her lip.  
"This is the fourth time," she admitted.  
"Who are you then? Some kind of Princess? Your Dad a mob boss? A secret agent?"  
She smiled without humor, and shook her head.  
"Tony Stark.'  
Peter's eyes went wide.  
"Oh. Okay then. That makes sense I guess."  
It was silent for a moment.  
"Okay then. You're the expert here. Let's make an escape plan."  
Hermione looked at him long and hard. Peter looked halfway between excited and terrified.  
She nodded.  
"Okay."  
The grin he sent her wasn't genuine, but it made her feel better all the same.  
"Let me see your hands."

"Somehow, you don't seem like the type," she muttered, as Peter unraveled the knots that bound her hands and feet.  
"For what?"  
"I figured you'd be more Mathlete than Boy Scout," she admitted, looking at bit sheepish.  
He rolled his eyes.  
"Should I be offended?" He teased.  
She shrugged.  
"That's your prerogative."  
He snorted quietly.  
Suddenly, the sound of the wheels hitting pavement changed, and Peter and Minnie gave each other a look.  
"We've left the freeway," Hermione confirmed, right before everything went dark.  
"And we're going through a tunnel."  
The car slowed, and the men up front grew quiet.  
Peter pressed himself against the back door, trying to see through the windshield.  
"Red light," he whispered.  
Hermione gave him a questioning look, and Peter nodded.  
It was harder finding the emergency release in the dark, but Minnie grabbed it, and gently opened the back door.  
She held it carefully as it lifted up, and did her best to keep it from making a sound.  
Peter grabbed it, held it in place, so that there was just enough room to slip out, and Hermione rolled through the hole, landing on the ground with a quite thump.  
She was slightly disappointed that no one was behind the Escalade on the road. It would've been much simpler to find another person and slip into their car. No way were they going to risk walking in front of their kidnappers.  
From the outside, Minnie grabbed the handle herself, staying crouched, and waited for Peter to pull himself through, giving him an odd look when he brought the rope with him.  
"Come on, and be quiet," she mouthed, pushing the back door back into place.  
They stayed close to the wall, doing their best to stay hidden as they rushed toward the waning sunlight outside.  
"Alright, we made it!" Peter whisper-yelled when they reached the exit, but Hermione slapped a hand over his mouth.  
"No, we're not. We need to find a cop, or a mother with children, someone we can trust. We didn't even see those guys faces. They could be anybody-"  
The sound of an engine revving and wheels squealing could be heard echoing down the tunnel.  
"Come on!"  
They sprinted towards the nearest alley and ducked behind a dumpster.  
"Dang, I was really hoping we'd get a better head start than this," she complained, searching her pockets for something useful.  
Several bits of metal scrap fell out of her jacket, and she sighed.  
Great.  
"Any ideas now, Boy Scout?"  
He shrugged.  
"Figures. I guess we're running then."  
So Hermione Stark and Peter Parker took off into the back alleys of New York City.

"Alright, our person of interest is Dennis Carradine. He's well known as a petty criminal, but he's had some connection to bigger crime if there's money involved. We believe it's safe to assume that he has been hired to kidnap Hermione Stark, and that he is not operating independently.  
"Currently, Carradine's place of residence is listed as an apartment complex in Queens, however, this information is likely outdated. Instead we are cross-referencing several of his known hangouts with possible sightings of the black Escalade."  
Tony stood leaning against a desk while the Cpt. Stacy informed his officers and the Parkers.  
The older couple had come out of their shock, he could see, because their expressions were of that same kind of soul-crushing misery that he'd been feeling this whole time. He knew it too well. It was the feeling you got when you felt completely to blame but knew there was nothing you could do. Not really.  
The thing was, this had happened before, again and again, and the only thing Tony had learned from the experience was that as long as he was Tony Stark, and Hermione was his daughter, all he could do was prepare her, do his best to guard her, and hope to God nobody got through anyways. It wouldn't work. But he could damn well try.  
The fact that he had tried didn't make this any easier though. Especially not now, with another innocent kid involved.  
"Alright, you all know your assignments," The Captain said, and his deputies filed out of the room, just as another woman walked in.  
Tony sighed as the others processed the woman's appearance. Dark hair, pale skin, drop dead gorgeous, and a skin tight, red jumpsuit with matching red boots with stiletto heels. And a cape. He would never understand why she wore that in public, though honestly, he wasn't complaining.  
"Wanda," he greeted, not liking the look on her face.  
Murderous was the only way to describe it.  
"So, Tony, when were you going to tell me that my favorite student's been kidnapped? Again?"  
"You were supposed to be in Transia for the rest of the month. There was no way to reach you in time."  
She huffed.  
"Yes well, plans change. How long has it been since she disappeared?"  
"Five hours," he told her, crossing his arms.  
"Who do you have out there?"  
He gestured to the nearly empty police station.  
Wanda rolled her eyes.  
"Really though, who do you have out there, who will actually find your daughter?"  
"Xavier sent out a team. Said it was the least he could do."  
She nodded with approval.  
"I assume Wagner's leading it?"  
Tony nodded. Probably; Kurt was damn protective of Minnie.  
"Good. I'm heading out then. Don't worry too much, okay Stark? I think you'd like your odds," she said, before opening the third story window and jumping out, much to the Parker's and Cpt. Stacy's shock.  
"Don't worry about it. Odds are, she'll even land on her feet."

It was getting dark fast, and cold even faster, and Hermione was running out of ideas. She had no idea where she was, no way to find her way out, and she had no illusions that those men weren't still after them in that very moment.  
"Don't you live in New York? How come you don't know your way around?"  
Peter narrowed his eyes at her.  
"The same way you don't know every street in L.A. Sorry I'm not a walking GPS," he muttered, and Minnie instantly felt bad.  
"Sorry. I just don't like this. Being lost in a place like this is even worse than being kidnapped. At least kidnappers plan on giving you back mostly alive. And God, what does it take to find a payphone around here?" she almost shouted.  
Peter dragged her back into the alley when a pair of headlights flashed on, and a truck could be heard driving past.  
"Is that them?" she squeaked.  
"Let's not find out, yeah?" he advised, leading her deeper into the alley.  
They turned a few corners, until they weren't sure how they'd even gotten this far from the street, with only dirty walls of old buildings meeting them at all sides.  
"Okay, that settles it. I officially wish we were still in the back of that Cadillac," she muttered.  
She expected Peter to make some kind of comment, at least to remind her that no, she didn't prefer being the clutches of some shady thugs over being desperately lost but not immediately in danger. But he didn't say anything. She turned around; a "what's with you?" look on her face, but then froze, her expression slipping into cold fear.  
He had the same dirty blonde hair as the man who had first grabbed her, but the mask was long gone. But now he had Peter in a chokehold, and curved blade held to his neck.  
"Come on now Princess, you've wasted enough of our time. Get over here, or your little friend gets it."  
She flinched. What a cliché. They were caught.  
Unless…  
Did she dare?  
Apparently of its own volition, the wind began to pick up.

"Tony, you're going to want to see this," Kurt said, appearing in front of the distraught father.  
"What? Did you find her? Where's Minnie?"  
"We think we may have found her magical signature. The rest of the team has already left to respond to the alert. I've come to collect you," the mutant explained.  
It wasn't every day a non mutant got to ride in the X-Jet, even Tony had never had the privilege, and he'd had a fair bit more than a hand in developing the thing.  
Kurt flew it well, and managed to keep him calm the whole way through.  
"Look here Tony," he said, pointing to a monitor on the dash.  
"This judges several different types of energy, including chaos magic. Hermione's is similar enough that it'd be reasonable to assume it can read hers as well. A few minutes ago, we got a massive spike, bigger than anything Scarlet's ever put out, maybe bigger than Jean. And it's maybe two miles away from one of the warehouses we thought Carradine might be taking the kids."  
Tony clenched his fists, with anxiousness, staring fixedly at the ground below them, hoping to see anything he could take as a sign that Minnie was down there.  
Then he saw an entire city block sheeted in blinding white.  
"What on Earth," he murmured.  
They landed in an empty lot, and exited the Jet, shocked when they stepped onto fresh snow.  
"Snow? In July? Is Storm on this squad of yours?"  
Kurt shook his head.  
"No, and that…concerns me."  
They followed it toward the center, where the snow was the thickest.  
They found an alleyway, right at the middle, where the snow was all a foot deeper or more, when Tony saw them.  
Two men, completely encased in solid ice, their eyes terrified.  
And in the middle of it all, two eight year olds huddled together, shivering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charles Xavier (Professor X)  
> Charles Xavier was the son of a Nuclear Physicist, who died in an accident (of course), and is basically the most powerful telepath in existence except for Jean Grey, who literally gets extra power from the powers that be, which is cheating. His mother later marries a gold digging Kurt Marko, who moves into their fancy house with his son Cain, who is not a biblical reference at all I /swear/. You know, since they're brothers, and Cain grows up /evil/ and all. (Google Juggernaut from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants if you're curious. I don't even think he'll be getting a cameo here.) According to First Class this apparently doesn't happen, or the fact that he has horrible relatives just isn't relevant, but sometime around here meets Mystique, and they bond over the fact that they can do things that human beings can't do for good reasons. (I'm kidding. Their powers are awesome.) He studies genetics at the fanciest schools Stan Lee knew the names of and then goes on to create the Goddamn X-Men. And for the majority of the time he was doing this awesome stuff, he also happened to be paralyzed from the waist down. No, seriously. 
> 
> Kurt Wagner (Night Crawler)  
> Kurt Wagner was raised by a gypsy woman, but he was actually the son of Mystique and a Demon called Azazel. Can you say Daddy issues? Of course the Village People were scared of a little blue baby, so they attempt to murder him, which becomes typical for the poor guy, because unlike his mom, he's doesn't have the ability to transform into whoever he feels like screwing over that day. He is however, able to teleport short distances, as well as climb walls and use his tail as a fifth limb. He's basically a monkey if monkeys were blue and awesome. And wore pants.
> 
> Wanda Maximoff (The Scarlet Witch)  
> The Scarlet Witch was probably guaranteed to be powerful from the moment she was conceived- she's the daughter of Magneto, as in arch-enemy of the X-Men Magneto, and twin sister of the mutant Quicksilver- and she was born with the ability to manipulate probabilities to her advantage. Which is exactly as ambiguous as it sounds. But she got an even greater advantage when the Elder God Cthon altered her DNA in the womb, giving her the ability to control chaos magic. Add that to her natural powers and she becomes one Witch you want to have on your side, because things /usually go her way/. She's fairly ambiguous when it comes to loyalties too. She spent a lot of time with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (the bad guys, if that wasn't clear), considering her father leads them, but she's also got a stint with the Avengers on her record. She even married and later separated from her fellow Avenger the Vision, who happens to be an Android, but let's not judge, okay?


	4. Thick as Thieves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, if you follow this story on FF.net (I'd recommend it) then you know the chapters I'm posting today are old but whatever. I'm working on writing a new one now since its been almost a year and the guilt has nearly finished eating me alive, but first I'm getting my Ao3 profile caught up.
> 
> Original Note: Firstly: Oh my goodness guys that was a long ass wait. I’m sorry. My muse got cancer, it was totally serious. Actually, I got a review like yesterday that got a ball rolling in my head, and I finally managed to finish this! Yay!  
>    
> Secondly: This chapter, as well as various chapters after this are dedicated to JannaKalderash, who at this point is practically a co-author. Her fabulous suggestions were only (barely) hinted at here, but they have greatly shaped the direction of this story. If I haven't mentioned before, I read every single review, they're the best part of my day. And the comments and suggestions you make there help me /tons/ even if I don't use them, I want to make a point to at least reference them. I just can't believe the response I've been getting from this story, and hope you guys stay enthusiastic about it.  
>    
> And Thirdly: Eh…Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! Yeah that was majorly late.

   
It was silent as the elevator made its way downward. The three men were tense and serious, an uncommon sight for at least two of the three, who tended to favor sarcasm in all situations.  
But not this one.  
The light that indicated floor number landed on the button labeled "basement", and the elevator slowed to a stop.  
The rush of cold air that flew in the opening doors only darkened the mood, reminding them why they were there.  
The chamber was a massive, yawning him hole in the earth that was much too reminiscent of a medieval dungeon for anyone to be at ease there. The shadowy shapes on the walls and floor did nothing to counter that image, except for the large fluorescent lights along the ceiling that flickered and flooded the cavern with light as the approached the center.  
Except for the giant shadowy mass that stood right in the middle.  
And when the final light flickered on, the three men looked with grim fascination at all six feet and four inches of Dennis Carradine, encased entirely in solid ice, and his partner  
Almost as if on cue, Anthony Stark and Captain George Stacy turned to the man between them.  
"So can you do it?"  
Tony snorted.  
"The real question is can you do it without killing him? As much as I'd love to see the bastard fry, we still need him for interrogation purposes."  
The young blonde man smirked and cracked his knuckles.  
"You insult me, Stark. You'll get to question him."  
He nodded, satisfied, just as his phone buzzed.  
A text from Pepper:  
She's awake.         
   
Tony shoved his hands into his pockets and made to saunter out the door, as if he had not a care in the world.  
"I'll let you get to it then," he said, strolling away.  
"Hey Storm..." he called back.  
Balls of orange flame erupted in the man's hands.  
"Yeah?"  
"Alive doesn't mean he can't be extra crispy."  
Johnny Storm chuckled.  
"You got it Tony."  
The elevator doors closed, and Tony Stark was gone.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~         
   
"How is she?" He asked as they made their way to her room.  
Pepper gave him a thoughtful look.  
"The doctors aren't sure, but Wanda's got an idea it's magical exhaustion. All that ice took more out of her than I think we even knew she had.  
She's better though; her and Peter are already making trouble, so I think they'll be fine," she said, a small smile growing on her face.   
Her phone rang, and she stepped aside to answer it.        
He nodded, and went inside.  
"Daddy!" He heard the moment he entered the the hospital room. But he couldn't exactly see Hermione inside. The nightstand, the floor, and the bed were all covered in various presents that had accumulated in the last three days. The short girl was completely blocked from view, particularly by a very large, very green teddy bear, that dwarfed all of her...Except for her hair, which hadn't been brushed in three days. Frankly, it was beginning to look like a life of its own.  
Tony leaned over the massive bear and grinned at what he saw.  
Her and Peter were sitting tie together on the bed, making the most of the ridiculous amount of gifts they'd received. Much unlike the night he'd found them, their eyes were alight with laughter, and their mouths were covered in chocolate.  
"Let me guess, the bear's from-"  
"Aunty Jennifer."  
He rolled his eyes.  
"Yea, real subtle, she is. And the chocolate?"  
"Grandpa."      
He chuckled. No surprise there, but the stack of books on the nightstand confused him.  
"Um, who brought you an Introduction to Astrophysics?"  
"Uncle Hank."  
Tony grinned, and locked eyes with Peter.  
"How are you, Peter?" He asked, not a little bit of guilt gnawing at him.  
The boy smiled.  
"I'm okay Mr. Stark."  
"Kid, just call me Tony. Mr. Stark is my Dad's name," he corrected.  
Peter Parker just grinned as he bit into another chocolate candy.  
"So other than giving yourselves cavities, what have you been doing in here?"  
She tilted her head in contemplation,  
"Well we woke up-"  
"And she was like, what year is it?"  
"And then Pepper spent like forever hugging me-"  
"And Aunty May wouldn't stop crying-"  
"And then the nurse came in-"  
"And she had presents."  
"Like, a lot of presents."  
"And it would've been a waste-"  
"Not to enjoy them!"  
The two kids burst into giggles.  
Damn it felt good, knowing she was alright. Better than alright even. He was hard pressed to remember a time when Hermione had had this much fun with kids her own age. That was rare, he knew. In fact, he didn't think she'd met a kid that wasn't at the Xavier Institute, or some snobby dinner party.  
Note to self, get Minnie some more friends.  
Tony grinned.  
"Good to see you kids enjoying yourselves."  
A middle-aged nurse with short black hair bustled into the room, a tray of medicines balanced on one hip, and bottles of water cradled in her other hand.   
"Ah, Mister Stark, I'm glad you caught them awake," she said.  
"Alright children, time for your medicine. It'll probably put you to sleep, so Peter, back into your own bed."  
"Yes ma'am", he said, getting into the bed next to Hermione and burrowing underneath the covers.  
Hermione pouted, but cleared the mess off her bed to make room for herself.  
"What's the medicine for?" Tony asked.  
"It might have caught the crooks, but those mutants' methods nearly froze the poor dears. Hermione seems mostly alright, but Peter here nearly got hypothermia, and they both seem to be coming down with colds."  
He nearly rolled his eyes at her distaste at the word "mutant", but nodded in understanding.  
"Also..." she took a quick glance at the children, who weren't paying attention in the slightest, too busy making silly faces at each other.  
"Mr. Stark, we had some...issues with your daughter. We couldn't get a read on her at all when we first brought her in, it was like the equipment just...quit. Eventually we managed to confirm that she is perfectly healthy, but that doesn't correlate with any of preliminary evaluations our emergency responders made. They had clear signs of hypothermia, and not a small amount of bruising, but you wouldn't know it from looking at her. I'd say the girl had been to Disneyland, not kidnapped, as cheerful as she is. Frankly, I don't know what to make of it, and I'm sure it's nothing to be alarmed about, but I felt you should know."  
 He nodded.  
"Thank you Miss...?"  
"Joy," she said.  
"Yes, thank you Nurse Joy."  
With a friendly smile, she left the room.  
   
By the time Pepper came inside, Peter was asleep, and Minnie was decidedly drowsy.  
"Daddy?"  
"Yeah cupcake?"  
Her brown eyes were very serious when they met his.  
"You got them, right? You beat them up?"  
He chuckled.  
"Not personally no, but I understand they'll be in the hospital for a while before they can go to jail."  
"Tony!" Pepper reprimanded.  
He rolled his eyes.  
"Don't act like you're not happy about it," he said smilingly.  
"That doesn't mean it's okay. They were horrible people yes, but violence is not always the answer."  
A some point in that sentence she had stopped chastising Tony, and was advising Hermione instead. However, there was no changing the kid's mind.  
"I think it's a good thing. I hope they learned their lesson," she said primly," and the corners of Tony's mouth lifted up at her expression.  
'That's my girl,' he mouthed towards his assistant, and the redhead just rolled her eyes.  
Minnie tried her best to hold back a yawn.  
"Go on kid, go to sleep," Tony said, ruffling her hair. Her face scrunched up in a pout, but relaxed soon enough because within minutes, she was asleep.  
   
The Parkers came in not long after that.  
"Oh good, they're asleep again," Ben said mischievously as they sat down.  
"Ben Parker!" May hit him on the chest roughly, and he laughed between coughing.  
When Tony joined him Pepper gave him a look like she might follow May's lead, but she didn't hit him.  
"Oh, don't look at me like that, woman," he said, rubbing his chest.  
"You weren't in here when they got all those goodies! They were bouncing off the walls! You wouldn't believe those two- known each other for four days, most of that unconscious and the rest of it kidnapped and they're thick as thieves! Next they'll be completing each other's sentences-"  
Tony couldn't contain his laughter.  
"Too late for that. It was extremely creepy. Sort of cute, but creepy."  
 After a moment, the laughter faded into an awkward silence, all four adults unsure of how to continue, until May Parker reached over, and gently took Tony's hand, and smiled.  
"Mr. Stark-" she corrected herself- "Tony, I know this wasn't an…ideal, situation, but I want to thank you. Many people didn't care that my nephew had been taken at all. But you cared about getting him back. You're the reason we still have our nephew."  
 Tony nodded, and Pepper noticed with a smile that Tony's posture relaxed at the words. No surprise, she realized that he had been blaming himself.  
“May, Peter is no less important than Hermione is. I would’ve never settled for anything less than the both of them coming home safe. It’s the least I could do.”  
She patted his hand, and released him.  
“I know Tony. You’re a good man.”  
As you might expect, he didn’t hear that one too often. Pepper smiled to him from her own seat. For the first time in four days, Tony felt warm.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Not too much to that, just some fluffy stuff, the bad guys get their comeuppance, and there’s massive presents involved, yay!  
> Alright, first thing. About last time’s guessing game:  
> 1 Was Jean Grey, obviously.  
> 2 Was Jennifer Jareau of Criminal Minds. Maybe I should’ve picked another person to cameo, but the description sort of wrote itself, so I just went ahead and referenced her.  
> 3I’ve decided to keep this a quasi-secret. Feel free to google it. But for those who don’t, I’ll be waiting for your reactions later on.  
> And now for new questions!  
> 1Who’s Minnie calling Grandpa?  
> 2Who’s Aunt Jennifer?  
> And 3 isn’t really guessing, it’s more of a poll. There’ two Hanks (that I’m aware of) in Marvel Universe. That’s Henry (Hank) Pym (Antman) and Henry (Hank) McCoy (Beast) obviously, I’ve already introduced quite a few of the X-Men, so Beast would be simplest, but considering Antman’s got a movie coming out, I’m curious about your favorites. Whichever one you like the best will be Hermione’s “Uncle Hank”. Gosh. This girl’s beginning to have a massive family. I haven’t even introduced the Avengers yet! And dear god, Hogwarts is coming up! In like two-ish chapters!


	5. Double Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original Note: I did it again, didn't I?? Sorry guys.  
> I hate to say it, but the way things are going, this is gonna be semi normal... Yikes. Life just keeps shoving itself in the way. Also my laptop broke- half the screen has been reduced to dead pixels, so that was a major setback too. Good thing I have Evernote on my phone. XD   
> Anyways yeah. I'm gonna try to keep myself to monthly updates at the longest. Rest assured I'm not giving up on this! Never! Although life's only gonna get busier from here. I graduate in two months, and I'm trying to convince a college that accepting me will not be a total waste of funds XD. So just bear with me, okay?  
> But enough of that! I gotta tell you guys how ecstatic I am!  
> Almost 130 reviews?!?! What on Earth??? This is insane! I'm so happy! Jumping  up and down makes typing very difficult!!! I'm trying desperately not to squeal like a thing that squeals! I think I'm going to go kiss a puppy! Or burn down a building! Not sure which! Ahh!  
> On with the story!  
> Oh! One last note, I added more obvious page breaks since my lines are apparently being hidden. They're in bold. The default is @TSE@, unless I'm marking a time jump. That's either gonna be a date or what age Hermione will be at that point.

Chapter 4: Double Trouble  
Six Years Old  
"Wait a second, so they got married? That's all?" Tony resisted the urge to cradle his head in his hands as he saw his daughter's musing expression. Weren't bedtime stories supposed to put kids to sleep?  
"Yes, Hermione, they got married. Happily ever after. Good nig-"  
"But why?"  
Goddamnit. She was making the face.  
He knew it well- the same expression he wore in the lab. She was thinking over a problem that absolutely required some resolution before she'd be able to sleep at all tonight.  
"What do you mean? They were in love," he said, rolling his eyes. Okay, maybe he could understand her confusion. Snow White was total bullshit.  
"But...But they've never even met before. He just kissed her! Without her permission! That's really rude," Minnie observed, crossing her arms.  
Tony swore to everyone he would never regret having a kid as smart as Minnie. In fact, any other time he would've been proud that his daughter wasn't obsessed with being a princess. But damn it, it was four in the Morning. Whatever energy she was currently running on was clearly an untapped energy source that he could market for millions of dollars. After she went the f*ck to sleep.  
" Yes well, Snow White was sleeping, so the Prince couldn't ask her. You know who else should be sleeping-"  
"Well I guess, but that still doesn't mean she had to marry him! They don't even know each other's names!"  
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.  
"Snow White is the fairest in the land, everybody knows her name. And Prince can totally be a name." He argued.  
This was getting ridiculous.  
She leveled him with a look that was thoroughly unimpressed.  
"A Prince named Prince? That's just silly Daddy."  
With a jaw-popping yawn he stretched across her bed.  
"You know what else is silly? That it's tomorrow, and we haven't gone to sleep," he muttered into her comforter, simply deciding he could no longer be bothered. Hermione giggled, and covered her father with the blanket, until they were both snuggled into the bed.  
"Goodnight Daddy," she whispered. Tony was snoring.  
   
Today  
Tony was almost scared to look. The laughter escaping their hospital room was a sound he knew too well.

His daughter only made that particular sound when she was doing something even he had the presence of mind to know what dangerous.

Snatching off the proverbial band-aid, he opened the door, and steeped inside, only to trip over Gamma, the giant Hulk-bear, who was hovering near the doorway. His stomach flipped nervously when instead of face planting on the floor, he began somersaulting through the air, his eyes narrowing as he spotted the Hermione and Peter, sitting on the ceiling like it was any casual conversation.

Damn it.

“Minnie,” he said with a long suffering sigh.

She giggled, knowing full well he wasn’t actually angry.

“Yes Daddy?” she asked innocently.

He shook his head, exasperated.

“Okay, you had your fun. Put everything back before somebody sees and we have to call Grandpa,” he warned.

With a huff, Minnie crossed her arms, and gravity returned to the room again. The kids landed harmlessly on their beds. Tony landed on the floor, hard. He sat up with a groan, only for Gamma to land on top of his head.

“Okay rule number…"  
“47,” Hermione offered.

He rolled his eyes.

“Rule number 47, no cancelling the gravity in hospital rooms,” he said, only half seriously.

She grinned.

“Yes Daddy.”

Nurse Joy rushed into the room, glancing around nervously, obviously expecting something had happened. When she found both of the children perfectly fine, and Tony on the floor, she sighed. Tony snorted; clearly, he wasn’t the only one who recognized how much trouble the two could get into in a very short amount of time.

“What happened in here?” She asked, eying the billionaire and various gifts strewn across the floor.

“We were playing Spaceman,” Hermione quipped, grin widening when Tony rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, we were floating on the atmosphere of the moon!” Peter added.  
Joy smiled good-naturedly, and shook her head, muttering the imaginations of children.  
Tony snorted. If only.  
"Mr. Stark, why exactly are you on the floor?"  
"Playing spaceman, obviously," he said, grinning."  
"Well don't let the children get too excited. They still need to be checked over, and as long as they don't over-exert themselves, they could be discharged tomorrow," she told them, which only caused the kids to start chattering like little hyper squirrels. He rolled his eyes again, even if he was relieved.  
   
The kindly nurse exited with a knowing smile, and then Tony remembered part of the reason he'd been so excited to get in here on the first place.  
   
"I'm needed down at the Police station, but I figured I'd stop in and drop off my own little get well present," he said, handing Hermione a duffle bag, which she immediately began rummaging through, shrieking with excitement when she found a McDonald's bag.  
"Chicken Nuggets!" She squealed, handing Peter his own bag while her new friend snickered at her enthusiasm.  
Tony sighed dramatically  
"She only loves me for the nuggets," he told Peter with a wink.  
"Thanks Mr. Stark."  
He shrugged.  
"Don't mention it kid. And seriously, call me Tony," he said, ruffling the boy's hair.  
Checking his watch, he sighed, and got up.  
"I gotta go. I left a surprise in the bottom of that bag for you. Don't get into too much trouble," he grinned.  
Minnie mumbled something he translated to mean "I love you," and he smirked goodnaturedly as he walked out. "You too cupcake."  
   
@TSE@  
   
Captain Stacy's face was grim when Tony made it to the station, and the billionaire's mouth thinned into a hard line.  
"What happened?"  
The Policeman gestured for him to follow him further into the building, where they entered his office and locked the door.  
Stacy crossed his arms, clearly frustrated.  
"Carradine is in a holding cell now. But he's tough. We haven't gotten anything useful out of him so far, but we've got our best man on it."  
Tony nodded.  
"And the other bastard?"  
The cop looked gray in the face.  
"Didn't survive the defrosting. Medical examiner says the ice crushed his ribcage."  
William Stacy was an intelligent man. He knew that while the current relationship with mutants was tenuous at best, he knew they weren't monsters. But the idea that a little girl could kill a man that way unsettled his stomach.  
Tony cursed and pinned him with a fierce look  
"I don't care what needs to be done, but you are not going to tell my daughter that she's responsible for that bastard's death," he said under his breath.  
Stacy put a hand on his shoulder.  
"I know, it was an accident. It's being fed to the media as a heart attack. But now we've lost one of our best leads, and still don't have a clue who did this."  
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose.  
"Let me call in a favor," he sighed.  
   
@TSE@  
   
Hey Minnie, what's this?" Petey asked, holding up a silver cylinder that looked a lot like a thermos bottle, with a Stark Industries logo emblazoned on the side.  
Hermione's grin told him something dangerous and awesome was coming next.  
"Oh man, you're gonna love this," she crowed, her fingers finding a seam in the side of the canister he couldn't see, and popping it open with a click.  
All the air escaped his lungs with a small "whoosh" when a holographic interface flickered into existence in front of him.  
"Identification please," a very British voice requested.  
"Hermione Stark," she replied, her voice clear, and her eyes excited.  
"Thank you Miss Stark,"  the voice now punctuated by a release of pressurized air from within, and suddenly a foot long model of a jumbo jet was hovering above her lap, only half constructed. The remaining pieces were drifting around, half of them too small to make out properly.  
Grinning at the question Peter obviously wanted to ask, Hermione explained,  
"This is one of the models my Dad makes when he's developing a new project. He makes a perfectly scaled version out of scraps and contains them in one of these. He calls it homework, but I call it Legos," she said, beaming at Peter's awed expression.  
"Homework?"  
He wondered aloud. She shrugged.  
"I'll probably take over Stark Industries someday. So Dad gives me these, and then I have to reverse engineer the pieces, and maybe make some improvements if I can think of anything. This one's a Stark jet. They're faster, and nearly indestructible, but the TSA banned them because they're powered by what is essentially a nuclear reactor, and they decided they weren't worth the risk," she explained, shrugging nonchalantly.  
She passed it to him, and he examined the tiny plane intently.  
"How do you even do anything with this? It's so tiny..."  
She moved her hands in an expanding motion, and holographic versions of the pieces appeared, growing until they were nearly full size. They found themselves sitting inside the cabin of the assembled section of the plane. From this perspective, he could see all the different layers of development- titanium panels and supports; circuitry and screws and wiring. It was terribly impressive, and he twitched a bit at the prospect of getting his hands on it.  
"So I could just..." He reached out and grabbed the holographic protection of a turbine, and slid it into place, the corresponding piece moving with his hand.  
   
"That's incredible!" He gushed.  
Hermione lit up at that.  
"That's not even the coolest stuff! My dad has a whole lab where he designs these things himself!”  
Peter decided then and there, while listening to Hermione ramble excitedly about things that to her were everyday amusements, that the last few days- kidnapping and all, had been by far the most exciting days of his life.  
@TSE@  
As far as Tony was concerned, the interrogation of Dennis Carradine was the most hilarious thing he’d seen in a while. It was essentially a giant game of chess, where Carradine and Jean Grey both had their own pieces, but the one’s given to Dennis were actually on Jean’s side, and nobody had told the stupid bastard yet. So the punk that was responsible for the kidnapping of his daughter was sitting back in his chair, perfectly at ease and unconcerned with the woman in front of him, completely unaware of the fact that she could read his mind that a particularly badly written book.  
It was always fun watching one of the X-Men do what they did best, although it did weird things to Tony’s head to know that crap like this was even possible. Like how Jean could take one look at a guy and know their head well enough to screw with a man in ways that NYPD’s best interrogator’s could only dream of. Said interrogator was sitting petulantly by the side, arms crossed, but frankly, Tony couldn’t bring himself to give a damn.  
The red haired woman was going easy on the poor bastard for now. She gave him the opportunity to volunteer the information at first, before she really dug in and scarred the idiot for life.  
But he simply scoffed and didn’t answer her question, instead making a casual comment about her breasts, which earned him a splitting headache, not that he’d realized she could even do that. Of course, he never would’ve said it if he knew Scott Summers was standing behind the two way mirror with Tony, primed and ready to fry his face off if necessary, but unfortunately, he didn’t know this either.  
Pity.  
@TSE@  
“Well?”  
Pepper asked him as he walked into the hospital room.  
The kids were in fresh clothes, and all the presents had been divided evenly and packed up at Hermione’s insistence, despite them being mostly hers. They were being discharged this afternoon. The whole ordeal was over, and Hermione and Peter had survived a traumatic experience, not that you’d be able tell from their faces. They’d been in the middle of making up their own language, although it was sounding suspiciously like a combination of Klingon and French.  
He didn’t know if that said more about how many times Minnie had already been through this, or how rarely she made friends her own age. Either way, Tony was still pissed about it.  
He shrugged noncommittally.  
“Carradine didn’t know anything. Jean searched his brain up and down and found exactly nothing.”  
Pepper patted him on the shoulder reassuringly.  
“It’ll be fine, I’m sure. Minnie will be safer when we get back home.”  
“Daddy, can Petey come visit?” Hermione interjected, her trademark puppy dog eyes at full capacity.  
Tony covered his eyes from the force of them, a grin on his face again from her infectious excitement.  
“Okay okay! If the Parker’s say its okay you can do whatever you want! Just don’t look at me like that, Jesus!” He laughed,  
The other adults snickered, and the kids high fived their success.  
“Talk about dangerous weapons,” Ben said under his breath, while waving off the looks the kids directed at him.  
“Oh yeah, sure. We’ll figure something out,” he promised them, ignoring the very unimpressed look Mary was giving him.  
“Alright! I’m gonna show you the lab, and the garage, and the missiles-“  
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Tony asked no one in particular, looking at the ceiling.  
“We? We all know you’ll be just as much trouble as they are!” Pepper reminded him.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we go. Personally, I don’t think it was my best work, but I really needed to get off my ass and post something. Anyways, that was chapter 4! To avoid confusion, I wanted to tell you that Carradine was definitely hired by a bigger baddy to kidnap Minnie, but he doesn’t remember who because his memory was wiped. It’s going to be mentioned in a later chapter, but I knew I’d be asked, and that won’t be for a while, so I thought I’d let you know now.  
> There isn’t really anything to guess this chapter, unless for some reason you don’t know who Scott Summers is. In which case, Shame on you! Haha, yeah. About the Hank vs. Hank thing, the Beast won unanimously. I really shouldn’t have been surprised, but yeah. Also, Grandpa is Professor X, lol. One of the reviewers who guessed mentioned Fury, which I hadn’t even considered, and I almost considered making it that, cause isn’t it hilarious? But he’s not due to enter this story for a long while, so I had to restrain myself.  
> As for Aunt Jennifer that’s definitely Jennifer Walters, also known as the She-Hulk, which was hinted by the hulkish green teddy bear, who Minnie named Gamma. Haha, get it? Okay I’m not funny. Sorry.  
> But yeah. Anyways. One last thing- I kind of posted a second chapter after this as an apology. Hope that’s enough for you guys to forgive me about the increasingly longer delays :S.


	6. Princess for a Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny thing about this chapter, it started out as several different drafts of the introduction of this same chapter which I just edited and arranged in chronological order. Haha.  
> Anyways, this is essentially filler. I just wanted some extra stuff so that in case it wasn’t agonizingly obvious, Minnie and Peter and are like totally best friends. lol. Next chapter is definitely Hogwarts, I swear! And it’s nearly halfway written, hopefully it’ll be up soon-ish!

A few days later    
"Anthony Stark, what the hell happened? I visit the base for two days, and by the time I get back you've been labeled world's worst Dad! What did you do?"   
 "Oh calm down, I didn't do anything."   
"Oh really, then what is this about losing your daughter? Why did you take her to Oscorp in the first place?"   
"First of all, I didn't lose her, she was obviously kidnapped. Second of all you know how she gets. She wasn't going to just let me /not/ take her. I had no clue that some asshole was gonna try to snatch her.  
"Dad?" a curious voice.   
"Baby doll? I'm in here," Tony called, hearing Hermione walk closer to the living room.   
"Uncle Rhodey!" she shrieked, jumping on his friend.   
The black man caught her easily, ruffling her already unruly hair.   
"You just came from the base right? Did you shoot anybody? Is your boss still an asshole?"   
"Woah woah woah, language young lady!"   
She gave him a disbelieving look.   
"Daddy, you said it first."   
"No excuses!" he said! A mock outraged look on his face.   
She giggled as Rhodey set her down.   
"No kid, I'm not on the front lines any more. I know how you feel about hurting people."   
He said, and her face lit up.   
Maybe Daddy will learn from you and stop making missiles," she said, sending a sideways glance at her father.   
"Hey! Those missiles keep a roof over your head!"   
"Yeah, a reinforced glass roof that is virtually indestructible and cost eighty grand," she mocked, shaking her head.   
"You weren't complaining when you picked it."   
"Because it's eco friendly and provides an energy source for my solar powered computer," she argued.   
"Oh yeah? Well the only reason it needs that much power is to stop it from crashing every time you touch it," he said, grinning.   
She stuck her tongue out at him.   
He smiled and pinched her cheek.   
Rhodey groaned.   
"I always knew I'd die surrounded by nerds."   
"Don't be so melodramatic, Uncle," Hermione said, the same time Tony said "You know you love us."   
"Whatever," he muttered.   
"So kiddo, other than getting snatched up off the streets did you like the Big Apple?" She nodded, a big grin on her face.   
"I have a new best friend Uncle Rhodey. His name's Peter. He's a boy scout."   
Rhodey gave Tony a look, and he shrugged.   
"You remember Richard Parker? Well Peter's his son."   
"Yeah, Dad, I think I wanna hire Petey when I grow up. That way I can work with my best friend, like you and Pepper," she said, smiling at the idea. Rhodey snorted, and Tony choked.   
"Oh, no no no, you can't be like me and Pepper, ever. You're not even allowed to talk to boys unless their Me, Uncle Rhodey or Mr. Happy," he said, looking more than a little ridiculous.   
"Uncle Rhodey, what is he talking about?"   
"He's telling you to stay away from boys," the Colonel said with amusement.   
"Oh! Daddy, don't worry about that. Boys are weird. But since you mentioned it, doesn't that mean that Pepper should stay away from you?   
Tony spluttered, his face turning red, before turning on his heel and stalking out, probably in the direction of the lab.   
She looked up at Rhodey, who was snickering.   
"He always does that. Anyways, since you can drive and I can't, can we get Ice cream?"   
"Sure Minnie, let me get my jacket."  
   
Some months later  
   
"Minnie! Breakfast!" Pepper called, setting a plate of pancakes on the counter, while Tony nursed a tall black coffee, dark, tired bags under his eyes.   
She watched in amusement as the man's face started brightening as soon as he heard little Minnie racing towards the smell of Pepper's "Zillion Dollar Pancakes". Ten year old Minnie skidded to a stop just in front of the table and sat next to her Daddy, a contagious grin on her face as she sat down.   
"G'Morning!" She just barely greeted before digging in, munching happily. Tony chuckled.   
Pepper rolled her eyes.   
"Good to see you're back from the dead. I told you not to stay up so late."   
Tony snorted. "If you'd been revolutionizing the field of artificial intelligence, you'd be too excited to sleep too.   
If possible, Hermione's eyes lit up even brighter than before.    
"What'd you make Daddy? Can I see it?  Can I?!" she asked, ignoring the look Pepper gave her for talking with her mouth full.   
Tony smirked knowingly, and said, "Say hello J.A.R.V.I.S.," for apparently no reason at all.   
Both girls looked utterly confused, until a display on the counter, formerly unnoticed, lit up, and a computerized yet decidedly British voice answered back.   
"Good Morning Sir, Miss Potts, Miss Stark."   
Minnie squealed with excitement.   
"Do you have facial recognition, or do you recognize our voices?    
"How many languages are you capable of understanding?   
"What's JARVIS stand for?"   
"Do you have access to the security systems-"   
"Minnie, calm down will you? J.A.R.V.I.S. is still acclimating to the system, you'll overwhelm him if you give him too much information to-"   
“Both. All of them. Just A Really Very Intelligent System. And yes. Speaking of which, Col. Rhodes is approaching the front door."   
"-process." Tony finished, an amused annoyance on his face when Minnie smirked at him, before turning and sprinting towards the door.   
"Uncle Rhodey!"    
"Hey, kiddo, how's it going?"   
Pepper doubted he understood her squeaking.   
Tony's best friend walked into the kitchen with Minnie hanging off of him like a monkey.   
"Hey guys. What's all the excitement about?"   
Tony shrugged.   
"New computer."   
JARVIS made a sound like a snort.   
"Oh yes, simply a computer that can operate your entire laboratory without a single command if necessary, and also balance your checkbook in the background."   
Hermione squealed again.   
"Oh my gosh did you hear that?! He can use sarcasm!"   
She squealed.  
   
@TSE@  
   
Hermione waded through the crowd of paparazzi that had gathered upon seeing her and her Dad at the airport, ignoring the constant questions.   
Daddy had told her that her surprise was waiting at Terminal A, and she couldn't decide if he was getting a pony, or if    
"Uncle Ben! Petey!" Hermione squealed, nearly tackling the both of them.   
Peter's hair was longer, and a bit darker, and he was taller than the last time she'd seen him, but even scrawnier, she realized with a snort.   
"You came! I knew it! You're gonna be at my party!"   
Peter grabbed her flailing arms and put them back to her sides, before hugging her back.   
"This is going to be awesome!"   
~   
"You're kidding-"   
"No, I'm not! Dad made a fully functioning A.I. in two days! He even has human like speech patterns and recognizes and understands regional vernacular! He can use sarcasm!" She squealed, looking like she might pass out from the excitement.   
"Well? What is he going to do with it? He could sell that anywhere- hospitals, the military, schools even. Your dad could make a lot of money off of that technology."   
She shrugged.    
"Oh, I dunno. He makes really great smoothies though."   
Peter stared at her for a long moment.   
"Your Dad monopolized an entire branch of computer science. Again. And he's using it to make smoothies."  
She considered that for a long moment, about to make an argument in her Dad’s favor, then realized how silly it was and burst out laughing.  
   
The Next Morning  
   
Hermione watched with destructive fascination as the concoction in the beaker changed colors rapidly, bubbling over with a hot glow that reminded her of lava. She remained unmoved, sitting cross-legged on the countertop even as the acid dripped on to the lab table and immediately set to work eating straight through it.   
It was only when heard an exasperated sigh that she looked up and grinned at her Daddy.   
"You know, when I told you that this alloy was impervious to acid erosion, that wasn't a challenge," he said, watching with vaguely impressed disappointment as his hard work literally disintegrated in front of him.   
"What that anyways?" he asked, not entirely sure he wanted know.   
She scratched her head..   
"Uhm…, I actually don't know. I think I just discovered a new isotope.   
He rolled his eyes.   
"J.A.R.V.I.S," he called.   
"I'll take care of it immediately, Sir," the A.I. replied, his electronic voice sounding somewhat amused, as a mechanical arm pulled the ruined countertop out of place and took it to Chemical Hazard Disposal."   
"Thanks," Tony said, glancing at Minnie pointedly.   
She giggled, not the slightest bit remorseful.   
   
It had become a game of sorts. Tony would build something, proclaim it Minnie-proof and feel proud of himself for all of two days before the kid found a way to destroy it all over again.   
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.   
Not that he minded, really. Hermione used a level of creativity and competence he couldn't help but be proud of, regardless of what she used that creativity for. Besides, his inventions had benefited from a serious increase in quality and durability. Provided they were used outside the Stark House, of course. She'd also learned an extreme amount of control on her…powers, if Wanda was to be believed. She of course, rarely actually exercised this control, if the massive outputs of industrial waste his lab produced was any indication   
Still, he could now trust her to actually be able to use her equipment, without destroying anything accidentally.   
But the mischievous way she was eyeing the mechanical arm J.A.R.V.I.S had used brought him back to the real problem.   
He couldn't trust her not to break anything on purpose.   
He grinned at the thought.   
'Daddy's little girl," he mused, his smirk matching hers.   
"For the love of God, please tell me you all went to bed at some point last night," Pepper said, her voice amused but tired.   
She grinned with false innocence up at her, before she noticed her Uncle standing beside her, and leaped off of her seat to nearly tackle him.   
"Uncle Rhodey you’re back!!"    
"Hey, kiddo, how's it going?" He asked, picking her up effortlessly and hugging her.   
Pepper doubted he understood her shrill explanation. .   
"Hey Tony, what’s going on now?"   
Tony shrugged.   
"She just melted through adamantium plated steel," he said, deadpan, his eyes closed in some deep concentration.   
Rhodey just shook his head. He'd grown used to this. Between Tony and Minnie, one of the Starks was always rambling about some scientific advance that he didn't really get.   
He shook his head.  
“Hey kiddo, where’s your friend?”  
“Petey? Oh, uh, about that-“  
“Minnie! Is this the Sonic Screwdriver you were talking about?” The boy appeared in the doorway, looking very sheepish when he realized that the adults had found them.  
“Hi Mr. Stark, and Miss. Potts, and Mr. Rhodes,” he said. Unlike Hermione, his upbringing had been comparatively normal, and his voice showed it. He definitely sounded like a kid in trouble.  
“Peter wanted to go to bed at nine-“  
“Oh, you mean like a normal kid?” Pepper said with amusement.  
The girl rolled her eyes.  
“Yes well, it’s my birthday week, and there’s just no way I could show him everything in the lab in just one day, and proved to him that it was way too exciting to go to sleep.”  
The adults present collectively sighed.  
"Yeah yeah. Alright Mini Me, Peter, go ask J.A.R.V.I.S. for breakfast, we’ve got big plans for today.  
"Are we talking "Stark Industries big plans or we’re going somewhere fun big plans?”  
He thought about it for a moment.    
She watched him expectantly.  
“Definitely somewhere fun.”  
"Okay!" She grinned, showing her missing front tooth before she ran off, dragging a just as excited Peter Parker behind her.  
Pepper looked between the two men curiously.   
"Do I even want to know where you're taking those kids?"   
Tony grinned.   
"Shhh, you'll spoil the surprise!"  
   
@TSE@  
   
Disneyland was one of those places that you’d hard pressed not to enjoy, no matter who you are. So the group consisting of Playboy-Billionaire Tony Stark, Hardened Military man James Rhodes, no nonsense Assistant/Girlfriend Pepper Potts and two 9 year olds were having the time of their lives; even if the kids where hyper beyond all reason, the various rides were making Pepper nervous and Tony’s techno-babble about why the rides were perfectly safe wasn’t helping at all. Even if the crowd of people watching their every move was getting damn near stifling. The place was called the Happiest Place on Earth for a damn good reason. And that reason was, if you could watch a pair of almost annoyingly cute kids having the best moments of their lives and not smile, you probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.  
The best moment, in Tony’s opinion, was when they stopped for a break just outside of Cinderella’s castle, and ran into the employee wearing the Minnie Mouse costume.  
“I hear your name is Princess Minnie,” the actor said cheerfully, and Tony would’ve rolled his eyes if the look on his daughter’s face wasn’t the best thing he’d seen all day.  
She looked so damn happy that he took the camera from Pepper and took twenty pictures of the moment himself.  
Of course, she got pretty tired of being called “Minnie Mouse” all the rest of the day.  
   
It took all of their concentration to keep the kids awake long enough to get home, because they were far from done, not that you could tell from the look of them. Poor Peter was out cold, and Minnie’s excited rambling was making a lot less sense than it usually did.  
So Tony did the only thing he could think of. He waited until Pepper wasn’t looking, and did the unthinkable.  
   
He gave them candy.  
   
By the time they got to the Malibu house, the adults were just shy of being forced to put the hyperactive little monsters on leashes…possibly muzzles too, and Tony definitely in the dog house.  
   
“Go on inside kids,” Pepper ordered, giving Tony a look that promised shouting.  
“We’ll catch up.”  
So Peter and Minnie skipped up the steps, and J.A.R.V.I.S. let them inside.  
“Surprise!”  
   
From a glance around the room she saw Grandpa, Uncle Kurt, Aunty Roro Uncle Hank, Jean, Scott, and Logan; Uncle Reid and Aunt Susan, Ben and Johnny, Wanda, Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Bruce! She hadn’t seen them all in one place in…ever, because they were always off doing missions or working, or in Uncle Bruce’s case, hiding.  
“Yes yes yes yes yes! Best birthday ever!!!!” She squealed, practically running around in circles, while Peter tried to make sense of the bizarre group in front of him.  
And that was when Peter found out that Hermione Stark didn’t just have an odd family. She had a family of freaking superheroes.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! It’s done! Finished all in one day! For you guys! You’d better be bloody grateful!!! Goodness! XD  
> Haha, in all seriousness though, I’m terribly sorry for taking so flipping long, especially for chapters that ended up pretty danged rushed.  
> Anyways, on the bright side, Hermione definitely gets her Hogwarts letter next chapter, so that’s something to be excited for, right? Yes!  
> Alright, quickie guessing game-  
> Who’s Auntie Roro? That nickname is so funny to me for some reason. XD  
>    
> Anyways yah. Also in the last few chapters I made a couple references and I wanted to warn you guys- I don’t necessary follow everything I make a reference to, I just do it for the lolz. So If you come to me saying “Eff yes, Star Trek! Don’t you just love (blank)?” The answer is no, cause I don’t actually follow Star Trek. Or Pokemon. Doctor Who I do know and love actually, but still, you get the picture. Sorry. But if you’ve got a fandom that you think I should mention, go ahead! I’m game!  
>    
> Til next time!


	7. Do You Believe in Magic?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I swear this isn’t a prank, I just really wanted to get this out while I still had the juices flowing.  
> Second:  
> Oh my gosh, your reviews are the best!! Not to jinx myself or anything, but I haven't gotten a single flame! You've all been so nice and constructive and I can't even express how happy I am! I have the best reviewers in the world! I don’t even know what to do with you all! *cries*

11 years old  
"Mister Stark you appear to have a visitor," J.A.R.V.I.S. said, bringing Tony's attention away from his project for the first time in hours.  
Tony glanced up at the security monitor that showed the entrance camera, but saw no one.  
"Eh, J.A.R.V.I.S., there's no one there. Should I recalibrate your-"  
"Sir, they're right behind you,"  
The A.I. deadpanned.  
Tony spun around so fast he nearly tripped, and very nearly landed on his ass when he found out that the people who'd apparently teleported into his him weren't even the usual people who teleported into his home.  
"Uhm. Who are you?"  
There were three; a tall, willowy man with blood red hair and enough makeup to turn off Ru Paul, a short, stumpy woman who clearly belonged in a house made of gingerbread, and a tall, matronly woman who looked like one of the awful nuns in some old musical he didn't remember the name of. Oh, and all of them were wearing black dresses and witches hats.  
Clearly, whatever was going on had something to do with Minnie. As usual.  
"Please sir, don't be alarmed, we are representatives from various schools of magic. We've come to enquire about your daughter possibly attending one of our institutions in the fall."  
Tony snorted. Wanda had warned him about this.  
"J.A.R.V.I.S., will you tell Minnie to come down here?" He asked, closing his eyes in a quick prayer to whoever would preserve his sanity.  
"As for you, are Magical people too good for knocking or something? You're lucky I didn't flip out and accidentally blow us all sky high! Jesus!"  
   
@TSE@  
The Fashion Disaster was named Achille Dupont from the Baton Rouge Academy of Magical Affinities, a so called "Free- Learning School", which encouraged "self-exploration" and focused on "ancient, rare, and obscure" arts, which sounded like "Voodoo" as far as Tony was concerned. And as open minded as he could be about whatever Minnie wanted to learn, that was a bit outside his comfort zone.  
   
The Sugar Plum Fairy was named Patricia Pepperpott  from the Salem Institute for the Magical Arts, an all girls school that emphasized balancing magical and non-magical lifestyles, so that students could excel anywhere. The woman herself was so cheerful that Hermione couldn't help but assume that this school's brand of magic was powered by the laughter of children and specialized in rainbows, instead of error-proof accounting, like the brochure said.   
   
Sister Superior was named Minerva McGonagall, and she was from a school in Scotland called Hogwarts.  
That's all she managed to tell him before both father and daughter burst into uncontrollable laughter.  
"Please, please tell me you have a sister school named Pigboils," Minnie giggled.  
The woman looked quite put out, like she had never received such a reaction before, and put her hands on her hips in a way that gave them the distinct notion that this was a woman who tolerated no nonsense.  
That didn't stop it from being hilarious though.  
   
@TSE@  
   
"Why should I pick you over any of the other schools?" She asked.  
They'd clearly been waiting for this very question, because they each straightened up in their chairs and cleared their throats.  
Mistress Pepperpott answered first, describing her "very prestigious " school, and it's curriculum. Most of it consisted of adding "with magical connections" to a skill she already knew, like "Advanced Calculus with magical connections", which she could do perfectly fine without magic, which made the whole thing seem pointless. And boring.  
Still, her enthusiasm was infectious.  
   
DuPont described a school that sounded way too much like old fashioned Finishing for her tastes, and even though her Dad's first impression had her wary, she hadn't really believed it until she learned that the classes were called "Arcane History" and "Summoning for Beginners."  
   
Which left Mrs. Pigwarts.  
"Mrs. McGonagall, what do you teach at your school?" She asked, pronouncing "McGonagall" carefully, to avoid forgetting a 'G'.  
The woman smiled sort of warmly at her.  
"I teach Transfiguration. It is the art of changing objects or even people, to your will," she said, clearly reciting something she said often.  
"Can you transfigure something for me now?"  
Imagine their surprise when the older woman suddenly turned into a cat, walked in a small circle for a few moments for demonstration's sake, and returned to normal.  
   
Hogwarts it is.  
   
@TSE@  
   
"I think I'm going to cry," Tony Stark said, his voice holding a reverence that made his daughter smirk.  
All around them, the people they walked past were going about their day as usual, which in this case apparently meant bewitching shopping bags to carry themselves; riding down streets on motorcycles that didn't even touch the ground, and apparently didn't require gasoline either, if the lack of exhaust was any indication; and taking their weird pointy sticks and zapping various unassuming objects until they became entirely different unassuming objects.  
He'd seen at least three people pop out of existence entirely, only to appear down the road at the shop they planned to visit, and it was damn exciting, if only because nobody seemed to be bothered by it.  
"The magical world is a beautiful place," he cried over-dramatically.  
Minnie sighed, amused.  
"Dad, do you want to come with me this fall? Looks like you're more excited about this than I am," she teased.  
 "Why aren't you excited, Brat? This is the freaking coolest thing I've ever seen!"  
She rolled her eyes.  
"Honestly, Wanda's been telling me about Wizard Boston for years now. I'm kind of underwhelmed, since I was expecting a city, not an alley," she told him, which caused the grown man to pout just a little.  
Hermione noticed a large store in front of them, several stories tall and decidedly lopsided. Apparently when you had magic for construction there was no need for building codes.  
"Hey, that's the place," she said, pointing to the sign that said "Harvelle's Hardcovers" that was floating in the general vicinity of the shop.  
She pulled out her supply list.  
The list was long, and the titles of her textbooks sounded utterly insane. She grinned.   
This was the fun part.  
   
@TSE@  
   
The last thing Hermione expected to find in Wizarding Boston was her arch-nemesis. But while she'd been enjoying herself in Harvelle's, waist-deep in books about Potions and something called Defense  Against the Dark Arts (which sounded utterly badass by the way), she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she slowly raised her head to lock eyes with the stupid bleached face of the bane of her existence.  
He was gaping at her, clearly just as shocked to see her as she was, but only a moment later they'd returned to their familiar glaring match.  
"Hermione," he sneered, his snooty little nose already turned up at her.  
"Draco," she growled back.  
"So you're a mudblood then? And here I thought you were just an annoying muggle."  
She wasn't quite sure what a mudblood was, but she knew a muggle was a non magical person.  
"Hmmph. Well this muggle is still worth more money than you'll ever be, Blondie, name calling won't change that. I will say I'm surprised. I'd never trust you to be able to point a wand in the right direction, but I guess that's why I'm not in charge of the selection process."  
Draco glanced to his left out of the corner of his eye, and suddenly sighed relief.  
"Alright, alright, he's gone," he told her.  
Hermione rolled her eyes.  
"I can't believe you have magic," they said at the same time, laughing quietly at themselves.  
After a long moment, silence fell over the both of them.  
   
She frowned to herself.  
"That thing about us being from different worlds- this is what you meant, isn't it? Your parents hate me and Dad because he's not magic?"  
Draco nodded.  
"But now you know I'm a witch. It still doesn't matter?"  
The blonde shrugged.  
"Your parents are still muggles." He said, by way of explanation.  
She snorted.  
"Here I thought we couldn't be friends because despite our parents being business partners, your folks are elitist bastards who probably do illegal things on the side. But the truth is they're classist, elitist bastards who probably do illegal things on the side?"  
"Hey," he said, voice strained.  
"They're still my parents," he defended.  
She shook her head.  
"They're still crazy," she said, gathering her books.  
   
@TSE@  
   
"Are you sure kid? We all know how well you do in "structured learning environments," Johnny said ruffling her hair and laughing.  
"Johnny! This isn't funny!" She pouted.  
"I have to further my education if I'm ever going to be a truly competent user of magic," she lectured.  
"Do you know that I can't do any spells? I just let go of my control and let whatever will happen happen! It could be chainsaws falling from the sky! Or appliances coming to life!"  
"Or spontaneous snowstorms in the summer!"  
"Yes! And God, will you let that go? It was a desperate situation."  
"I'll say," Peter interjected, plopping onto the couch across from them.  
" Although I could've done without the frostbite," he grinned.  
He’d taken to spending his afternoons here at Baxter building, where he could get his hands on Uncle Reed’s research, although that was just as much his idea as her own Dad’s insistence. In the years they’d known each other, her Dad had claimed Peter “the second most talented brat he knew”  
Minnie buried her face in the couch.   
"I hate you all," she muttered.  
   
Like a gunshot, the glass windows in the tower all shattered at once.  
"Minnie! Peter! Get downstairs!" Johnny shouted, his body igniting with a command and a rush of heat as he rushed out the newly open window.  
The kids rushed to the staircase and sprinted to the floor below, where Ben, and Susan were rushing in.  
"What's going on?"   
"What happened?  
"I don’t know, everything just exploded!  
She cried, eyes frantic.  
“Woah woah, calm down everybody, false alarm!” Reed called when he stretched into the room, his hands up in the universal “ I come in peace” sign.  
The group sighed with the relief.  
“I swear, this happens every time you visit,” Peter whined.  
She summoned a book that had fallen from the shelf and dropped it on his head.  
“Moron! I’m not the one who nearly blew us all up!” She laughed, harder when Peter stuck out his tongue at her.  
   
@TSE@  
   
"Got your cellphone?"  
The train was preparing to leave, and the young brunette girl was growing impatient.  
She put a hand on her hip.  
"Yes, Daddy," she answered, in what was clearly an American accent.  
"Hey! Don't roll your eyes at me!" Her father chastised, only half serious.  
"Al-right Dad, can I get on the train now?"  
"Alright,alright. Are you sure you have everything?"  
"Dad!"  
He chuckled, ruffling her hair in that annoying way of his.  
"Fine, get on out of here," he conceded.  
She scrambled towards the train, heavy bags in tow.  
"Wait!"  
She stopped immediately, almost toppling over with the sudden loss of momentum.  
She turned to find her crazy father jogging towards her.  
The silly man picked up his daughter with ease, spinning her around and kissing her forehead.  
"I love you, Brat."  
She giggled.  
"I love you too, Daddy."  
And with that, the little bushy-haired girl picked up her things and boarded the train, disappearing from her father's sight.  
Tony sighed, smiling to himself.  
   
They grow up too fast.  
   
@TSE@  
   
Harry Potter remembered thinking she was very short, and very cheerful, and very pretty. And chatty. When the little girl called Hermione first opened her mouth he already knew she wouldn't be very inclined to stop, but he didn't mind. She spoke about things he didn't quite understand, but her accent was interesting.   
   
"Come on, we'll sit together," Ron said, just as the apartment door was pushed roughly open, the newcomers wrongly assuming it was empty.  
By the time eleven year old  Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley noticed the young girl tucked into a corner, incredibly curly hair obscuring her face, they'd already gotten comfortable in their seats.  
Harry jumped up on reflex, apologizing profusely; but the girl didn't respond..;  
"Oi! Who do you think you are, ignoring 'im? 'E said 'e's sorry for bargin' in on ya!" Ron chastised, still to no reply.  
Ron turned as red as his hair, and might've yelled at the girl further had she not suddenly stirred, pulling her hair out of her face and looking at them as if she'd just suddenly realized they were there.  
She pulled a pair of headphones off her ears and hung them around her neck.  
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" She asked, in what appeared to be an American accent.  
Ron opened his mouth to holler at her, but Harry cut him off.  
"Sorry. We didn't realize you were here when we came in. Do you mind if we stay?"  
She nodded briefly.  
"Sure. Don't mind me," she said, almost putting the headphones back on before she seemed to think better of it, and held out her hand to shake.  
   
"I'm Minnie," she offered.  
"Harry. And that's Ron," Harry greeted.  
"You're a muggleborn, right?" The redhead cut in.  
She looked confused, looking to Harry for clarification.  
He shrugged, unsure as she was.  
"What's a muggleborn?"  
Ron rolled his eyes.   
"It means your parents haven't got any magic," he said, as if it were obvious.  
"Oh, is it like Mudblood then?"  
Ron sputtered in surprise, but she continued as if he hadn't reacted.  
" Well, I guess so. Do your parents have magic?"  
"Of course!"  
She shrugged.  
"What about you?"  
She said, turning her gaze on the green-eyed boy.  
"I- uh, don't know. My parents died when I was a baby."  
She shrugged, not quite apathetic, and nodded.  
"Well my dad didn't know too much about magic either. I've had a tutor since I was five, but she deals with Chaos Magic, which I suppose is a different sort of thing," she rambled, her expression considering.  
"But then this professor came to our home and turned into a cat. It's called Transfiguration, she said. And now I'm here," she said excitably.  
Harry smiled softly at her enthusiasm.  
Ron only seemed more flabbergasted.  
Were all girls this weird? He wondered.  
   
"So you're from America?" Ron asked.  
She snorted.   
"Obviously. My Dad and I live in Malibu. He'll be so excited to find out my Stark Phone doesn't work against magical interference," she said, fiddling with must have been the aforementioned phone with a look like what one might give a killed pet.  
"...I'm not the only one who doesn't know what a phone is...right?"  
Hermione gaped at the red-headed boy.  
"Harry, exactly how far behind is wizarding culture?" She asked, although she was quite terrified of the answer.  
"Behind? That's rubbish!" Carrot Top interrupted.  
"At least the Wizarding World isn't still running around having bloody World Wars and mistreating colored people!"  
Hermione looked as if she might faint.  
"Ronald, World War 2 ended in the forties! And if you called anyone a colored person you could potentially be beaten into a bloody mess!" She corrected, looking like she might be in the middle of a heart attack.  
Harry looked at her with concern.  
"Just, tell me, do you have television?"  
He stared blankly.  
"Radio?"  
Again, silence.  
"Electricity?!"  
"Oh psh, I'm not bloody stupid! I can tell you're just making up words now!"  
Hermione gave Harry a horrified look, while Ron continued, looking offended.  
"Eleck-trickery! Rubbish! Maybe things are different in the States but on this side of the pond it's not nice to lie to people. I don't see how you plan to make any friends that way," he chastised.  
Hermione glared, upset, even as Harry laughed.  
"Ron, she's not lying. Electricity and television and radio are all things in the non-magical world," he explained.  
"And as soon as I get reception I'm going back to it. I can't be out here, in the middle of some Plague-ridden forest in a magic school with no electricity!  
Do you even have running water?!"  
She ranted, appalled.  
Ronald looked downright offended.  
"Of course we do! What do you think this is, the Dark Ages?"  
"I  couldn't have said it better myself!" She said, crossing her arms petulantly, sinking back into her seat with a huff.  
   
'Ohh, when Daddy hears about this, he will not be happy,' she thought, feeling sour. And here she thought this might be fun.  
   
@TSE@  
   
"Firs' years! Firs' years come wit' me!"  
Hermione gaped up at the big man who was beckoning them closer, helpless but to stare at his easily eight foot stature and the veritable jungle that was his hair.  
"'Arry! How are ya lad? Who're your friends?"  
Hermione couldn't help but shake her new friend's arm with excitement.   
"Harry!? You know a giant?" She squealed.  
The Boy Who Lived made a very confused sound in the back of his throat, but Minnie didn't notice.  
"Eh, heh, I'm just half," the big man said, somewhat reluctantly, as if it wasn't absolutely bloody cool.  
"That is so awesome! Hi I'm Minnie!" She said, holding out her hand to shake.  
   
With a slightly uneasy smile, he took her very small hand in his, and shook.  
“’Ello there Minnie, I’m Hagrid. Welcome to Hogwarts.”  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that’s that! I bet you didn’t believe I’d updated so soon did you? Haha Well I’ll admit, I did rush a bit- I figured since it’s April Fool’s I’d give you guys a treat instead of a trick. Sorry if it’s noticeable, XD  
> Anyways, next chapter officially starts Hermione’s year at Hogwarts, with some questions for you guys- a poll really.  
>    
> As for Minnie's house. Idfk. I'm leaning towards Gryffindor cause it'd be easiest, but Ravenclaw would obviously fit, not to mention Slytherin would be crazy and hilarious because she'd definitely whip those little racist bastards into shape. She has more than enough loyalty for Hufflepuff too, but she'd probably drive poor Prof. Sprout insane! So… Suggestions?  
>    
> Also, I’ve been getting some very interesting suggestions for Hermione’s potential future boyfriends, and all I gotta say is LOLOLOL. Calm down guys, we’ve got like four years before that happens, cool your jets! I’ll probably let you vote on it when we get there


	8. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I know I wasn't especially clear, Hermione and Ron don't know that Harry is Harry Potter. In my mind, after helping him find the platform Ron just kind of pulled him along and they found a seat together. They shared first names, but Potter and Weasley never came up. Also, for the record, the Ron bashing will not continue forever. He'll start coming to his senses eventually, he just has to grow up some, and learn about other other people and stuff.   
> And lastly warning for vaguely implied sex between consenting adults. I really doubt anybody cares, but meh.

Chapter 7:   
"So what house do you want to be in, Harry?" She asked, as the clearly enchanted boats sped along the lake.   
Fairy lights illuminated the lake, floating in a way that suggested they were actual fairies, and they cast a beautiful sparkling light on the water.   
He looked up at her with confusion.   
Ron scoffed.   
"Your house? Ya know, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff?"   
Harry clearly had no idea what they were talking about.   
Hermione grinned.   
"There are four houses at Hogwarts. Those are the people you spend your days with, share dorms, have classes and play Quidditch with.   
The houses are Gryffindor, who embody bravery, Ravenclaw, who seek knowledge,   
Hufflepuff who admire loyalty. And our Dear Ronald blatantly left out Slytherin House, who take pride in Cunning and Ambition.   
So with that in mind, where do you want to go?"   
Harry shrugged.   
"Bravery…that sounds good," he said kind of shyly, and Hermione studied the look on his face. He seemed to be considering something specific   
"But then, loyalty's important, and so is intelligence…and ambition…" he trailed off, causing to her to wonder what her newest friend's ambition could be.   
Harry shrugged again.   
"I don't know. How do you pick?"   
"You don't!" Ron interjected, before Hermione could explain.   
"My brothers Fred and George told me you have to fight a troll, and how well you do decides it!" He cried, clearly having believed his elder brothers.   
She rolled her eyes.   
"Definitely not. The process is quick and completely painless."   
Ron scowled unattractively.   
"Well if you know so bloody much, how do you choose?"   
She grinned.   
"A sorting hat."   
Harry blinked several times in confusion, and Ron began laughing uncontrollably.   
"Whatever! You don't know either do you? A hat! A bloody hat! That's the silliest thing I've ever heard!"   
"Where do you want to be put, Ron?"   
Harry said, mildly annoyed with his rudeness.   
The redhead puffed up immediately with pride.   
"Gryffindor, obviously! There hasn't been a Weasley in the last five centuries that hasn't been in Gryffindor!"   
"So? That doesn't mean anything. You only go to Gryffindor if you're particularly brave. Are you?"   
"Of course!" He said, as if her question was the silliest thing he'd ever heard.   
A silence fell over them, and Hermione sighed at the looks they were aiming at her. Around them, the boats began slowing to a stop as they reached the shore.   
"If you must know, I want to be in Slytherin," she said, before standing up and walking onto the dock.   
After a few feet she turned and glanced at the two boys still sitting, Ron looking flabbergasted.   
"Well? Are you coming?" 

@TSE@

Draco Malfoy had planned to "retrieve" Harry Potter from his unsavory company the moment he saw him walking next to a red head. Not even a full day in and already a Weasley would try to latch onto him? He thought not.   
But then he got a good look at the girl on his other side, her usually untamed hair pulled into a braid.   
Stark?!   
What was she doing in Scotland?   
He knew for a fact that there were at least three other schools she could've chosen in North America, dozens around the world…and she chose Hogwarts? This could not end well.   
So for the sake of his hide, he didn't approach the boy who lived, and simply observed while the red headed wonder shoved him towards his stupid "courageous" house.   
Boy was he in for a shock. 

"Slytherin? Are you crazy? They hate muggleborns!"   
She rolled her eyes.   
"So I've heard. I don't care."   
"But only dark wizards join that house."   
"Definitely not. I plan on joining, I'm certainly not dark."   
"They're all evil!"   
"And the fact that you think so is exactly why I should join. As far as I'm concerned, evil people are rarely truly evil. People who don't understand call them that because they don't know any better.   
The truth is that bravery is all well and good- I'm certainly no coward, but I don't want to die because I choose a time that requires planning and skill and charged into a deadly situation.   
I don't want to be blindly loyal to a person who may eventually betray me themselves, and what does it matter if I've got all the book knowledge in the world if when it comes time to use it, I can't?   
So yes I'm choosing Slytherin. That doesn't make me evil, that just makes me aware of what I myself need to better myself as a witch." 

Nothing else was said between them. 

@TSE@

Ron's face was even redder than his hair when he realized that the sorting was in fact done by a hat. A hat that sang cheerful tunes and had a torn seam for a mouth. Minnie smirked to herself, but never looked at him.   
The great hall just screamed magic. Everywhere. The ceiling was enchanted to look like the night sky, the hall was filled with floating candles-which were a bittersweet experience, as she was now truly feeling the absence of electricity. At the front sat a large table, where the most bizarre group of people sat. From the nervous looking man in a turban to the man on the end who she simply assumed was a vampire, they were all different, and all equally bizarre looking, especially the man in the center, who appeared to be attempting the world's longest beard as well as longest lived person. She took one glance at his florescent robes and swore never to comment on Wanda's 'uniform' ever again.   
Professor McGonagall began calling names alphabetically, and the eleven year olds began marching to their fates. 

The first of the three was Harry, but after his name was called only he reacted for a long moment.   
"Harry. Harry Potter?? That was Harry Potter??" The whispers erupted all around the hall, all but the muggleborn first years and teachers reacting with shock.   
Hermione blinked, confused, and mildly upset that she didn't know what was going on.   
What was so special about Harry Potter?   
The noise had become so much that when the hat finally said his house, Hermione couldn't decipher a sound, just read the hat's jagged lips mouth hole.   
Only the teachers noticed, their faces draining of color.   
But when Harry got up and quickly rushed over to the Slytherin table, attempting to become invisible again, everyone noticed. And the Great hall was perfectly silent again.   
Looking just as shaken as the rest, McGonagall called the next name, and the applause continued, quieter than before.   
Then it was her turn, and her name was called.   
None were as shocked as they were with Harry, but it was clear that some of the muggleborns knew who she was.   
She sat down, and let the hat be placed on her head.   
"Hello there,"   
She blinked. Was it-   
"Talking in your head? Certainly. Now let’s see. You've led quite the interesting life, young lady. Superheroes and mad scientists and fame and riches! This little magical world of ours must be quite boring in comparison," the enchanted piece of felt mused.   
"Brave enough, I'd say. I suppose you've been exposed to more than enough danger with your father. "   
It seemed to be laughing inwardly.   
"And a mind to rival all of your teachers. I imagine your common sense is enough to set you miles ahead of your own father in that regard as well."   
She laughed herself at that.   
"Not Hufflepuff, I think. Your loyalty may be strong, but born leaders never do well in a house where all are equal.   
She stuffed down the urge to cross her fingers.   
"You understand the struggle you will have to undertake? That you will likely be hated in that house?"   
'Yes.'   
"You understand the danger?"   
'Yes.'   
"Then I think you'll be great in   
"SLYTHERIN"   
Hermione Stark put down the hat and calmly walked over to Slytherin table, and sat down next to Harry, who smiled in relief.   
A flabbergasted Draco Malfoy sat across from them, mouth falling open in the most undignified expression she'd ever seen him make.   
She chuckled quietly to herself. 

She spent the rest of the feast quietly observing. She observed that several faces were blatantly glaring at her and Harry, that the vampire looking man must have been their head of house because he was watching their table the most, and that McGonagall and the fantastically bearded man must have had a different outcome in mind for Harry's sorting, because they were looking specifically at him with what she could clearly see was disappointment.   
This would be interesting. 

Severus Snape had been arguing with himself for the past hour, unsure with how to proceed. Tonight had had unprecedented results. First Harry Potter had been sorted into Slytherin, then the Stark girl, the muggleborn daughter of a Billionaire.   
His house was surely preparing to boil over at this very moment, and he'd be responsible for setting things right, and ensuring that the Wizarding World's most famous person, and the Muggle World's most famous person came out unscathed.   
Why him? 

@TSE@

Tony was already feeling the difference.   
He'd actually gone to the office after dropping her off, needing something to keep himself busy, which hadn't happened ever since Minnie learned to walk.   
Pepper had been keeping an eye on him all afternoon, giving him something new to work on as soon as he finished his current tasked and tried to call Minnie again.   
He hadn't been this productive since…ever.   
"Oh, hey! Tony! Boy, I haven't seen you physically in this office in months," Obadiah said as he walked in.   
Tony shook his hand and grinned.   
"Yeah well, you know how it is with Minnie. Kind of hard to go anywhere if I can't see her at all times, it's bad for my health," he joked.   
Obadiah laughed and waved him off.   
"Oh, give the girl a break, I'm sure you break more than she does."   
He shook his head.   
"Maybe, but I do it in the name of Science. She does it in the name of Destruction."   
"Where is the Princess anyways?" he asked, the same way he always referred to Minnie.   
He shrugged.   
"Boarding school. She wanted to try it," he told him, a half truth.   
Stane looked apologetic.   
"Well, I'm sure that must be hard. Of course, I'm sure she'll be calling you every chance she gets," he told him, clapping a hand over his shoulder.   
"Anyways, I came up here to give this to Pepper, but since it's for you, here you go. It's the market projections for this quarter."  
Tony stared at the man, blinking confusedly for a long moment.  
"That's...my job?"  
Pepper let out a long suffering sigh, and took the paper from his hands.  
"I don't get paid enough for this," she told the two men.  
Stane laughed, and went back to his office.

Tony sank into his chair, the one he specifically selected because it was simple and sturdy, which was the closest he could get to Minnie-proof without building it himself out of materials that hadn't been discovered yet, and huffed.  
He was supposed to deal with four months of this? Four months before Winter Holidays and Minnie came back home, where he could hopefully convince her to never leave the lab ever again?  
He'd never make it.  
He glanced up to see Pepper still standing beside his desk, her soft smile knowing.  
"She'll be fine, Tony. If anything, we should be expecting a call begging us to take her back before long," she mused.  
She was right, probably. But then, this was Wizard School, not kindergarten. Frankly, if the teachers there bit back, he wouldn't have been surprised.  
Pepper leaned in and kissed his cheek reassuringly.   
"I know something that'll cheer you up," she murmured.  
Her tone of voice made Tony's eyes widen like golf balls, his expression more eager by the second.  
His mouth curled up in a wolfish grin, he calmly began packing away his things.  
Hmm, maybe he could get through this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that totally happened.  
> If my choice of house makes you want to burn me at the stake, sorry, but you're in the minority. Something like sixty people reviewed, and the majority wanted Slytherin. Still, from now on I'll just use a poll, because counting the reviews was a bitch :-D  
> But don't freak out, okay? Hermione will be all about house unity. She'll still make awesome friends and be generally badass. To be honest, my decision was made for the sake of her own future- the Slytherin skills will be necessary, but also for Harry. You'll see why eventually.   
> For the record, yes, I made it so Hermione hadn't looked up Harry before hand. I felt like they should be on a bit more even footing. Besides, our Minnie had more important things to do- like figuring out how magic works and breaking it. Oh man the plans I have for first year!   
> Also, someone mentioned the Malfoys, since it seems kind of weird that they'd do business with the Starks.  
> Hah, I know. There's a method to my madness, I swear.


	9. The Potter Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Surprise, I'm not dead! Surprise again, this story is not being cancelled!  
> I'm just suddenly a college student and therefore a lazy asshole!  
> Please stop threatening to burn down my house. :D  
> In other news, plot things are happening woooooh. (fuckin finally)  
> This chapter is dedicated to JannaKalderash.

Chapter 8: The Potter Boy  
Harry; Six Years Old  
The small boy flinched as each thunderous footstep moved down the creaking stairs. Dust fell from the ceiling of his cupboard as Vernon moved above him, his angry grumbling and cursing leaking through the thin walls.  
Harry didn't have the slightest idea why his Uncle was so angry, he never did, but he wasn't stupid. The Dursley's may have preferred to pretend he didn't exist, but the moment Vernon remembered otherwise, he was going to be in trouble.  
Any other time, Harry would've bolted out the door long before Uncle Vernon could've made it down the stairs, but it was after dark, and Aunt Petunia always locked the cupboard at night.   
He'd made it to the bottom of the stairs now, only feet away from his door.  
Harry squeezed himself into the vary back corner of the cupboard, skin prickling as cobwebs brushed his skin, but he ignored it.  
Uncle Vernon was outside his door, breathing heavily and cursing under his breath, struggling with the lock.  
He screwed his eyes shut, wishing above all else that he could be anywhere, anywhere but here.

Imagine his surprise when the door shielding him slammed open, his eyes going wide with fear, only to find himself in a room was certainly not his cupboard, staring up at a man that was certainly wasn't Uncle Vernon.  
"Who dares to enter my-" the man paused, flabbergasted to see a little boy sitting on his bed.  
He had dark hair, long and slicked back, and he was tall, taller than Uncle Vernon, and much, much skinnier. His eyes were green, and highly confused, his jaw slack with disbelief.  
"Where am I?" Harry asked timidly, as the stranger walked closer. He dropped to his knees in front of the poor confused boy, something like awe lighting his eyes.  
"You…how did you manage to get here Harry?" He asked hoarsely, but not unkindly.  
Big eyes widened further.  
"Do I know you?"  
The strange man chuckled quietly.  
"Not exactly. But I know you. And I knew your parents very well."  
"My…my parents?  
He nodded in answer, and Harry was full of questions, but then he noticed the blood.  
His mouth was circled by small holes, unnoticeable at first glance, but glaring and painful looking from where Harry sat. They were raw, and looked like they'd only recently stopped bleeding.  
He wondered what had happened to the stranger who was nice to him.  
The man noticed his gaze and brushed his lips with a finger.  
"Do these scare you Harry?" He asked quietly.  
He shook his head, but couldn't tear his eyes away.  
"They look like they hurt," he said simply.  
The stranger smiled slightly.  
"I'll be alright, I promise. But let's not worry about me just now. Where have you come from little one?"  
He'd never seen that look in a grownup's eyes before, like they cared about what he said. So he told the stranger about Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Petunia, and how he was probably going to get a spanking when he got home, but he didn't even know how he'd gotten here.   
The man had gotten an odd little smile on his face, one that didn't look particularly happy if you asked Harry.   
"Harry, your birthday is coming soon, right?"  
He shrugged. Birthdays were always something Dudley had. He didn't think he had one.  
Little did he know that the stranger could hear the words Harry had neglected to say.  
He saw a small lifetime of loneliness in this little boy.  
He smiled kindly, and held out his hand.  
Harry watched in awe as a small circle of gold appeared, where it clearly hadn't been before, eyes unbelievingly staring at the golden bracelet and the man's smirking face.  
"How?"  
"Magic, Harry. People like us can do incredible things. It's why your Aunt and Uncle are scared of you."  
"Like us? Me?" The little boy couldn't believe his ears.  
The man's green eyes lit up with a smile.  
"Of course. You're a wizard, Harry."

Present

Hermione trailed behind the first year Slytherins, who had formed two identical lines behind the Prefects. They walked in sync, no one uttering a word, as if they'd been using this formation all their lives, instead of just a few minutes.  
"Look at us," she murmured to Harry.  
"Twelve leetle girls, in two straight lines," she drawled in a perfect French accent. Harry snickered, causing a blonde head to turn, and Draco to sneer at their disturbance.  
She rolled her eyes, and just as the group turned a corner, grabbed both boys and pulled them aside.  
"Stark! What are you doing?" The Pureblood hissed, glancing worriedly at Harry, and their classmates, who were quickly leaving them behind in the unfamiliar hallways.  
"Oh calm down, will ya? Nobody's gonna notice we're gone, and besides, I already know the way to the common room," she said, grinning in a way that told both boys she was up to no good, and leading them into a side hallway they hadn't noticed before.  
"Uh, Mione? What are we doing, exactly?"  
The brunette smirked.  
"Orientation."

"Harry, meet Draco, Draco, this is Harry," she said as she led them to a particular painting of a bowl of fruit, and tickled a particular pear.  
"Stark what-" Draco's warning tone was cut short when the portrait swung open to reveal a massive room filled with stoves and sinks and all sorts of kitchen-y things. Dozens of the strangest little creatures you might ever see were scurrying around, cleaning what they could clearly tell was the remains of tonight's feast.  
"What are you doing here Stark?" He hissed, glancing around nervously for listeners.  
"Me? Why I'm just continuing my magical education," she said innocently.  
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose, and sat down roughly, and she grinned.  
"I mean what are you doing in Scotland? In Slytherin House? With Harry Potter?!"  
A little pout settled on her face.  
"What is that about anyways? Harry, I thought you were from the muggle world, why does everybody here know you?"  
The boy in question blushed, his cheeks quickly turning pink.  
"Eh, about that..."  
"You mean Hermione Stark, supposed smartest girl in the world doesn't know who Harry Potter is?" Draco sneered.  
She rolled her eyes.  
"Oh yes, terribly sorry that my studies on magical theory took time away to learn about celebrities. I'm a genius Draco, not a God," she huffed, turning up her nose at him.  
Harry burst into giggles, earning an odd look from his companions. He sobered immediately  
"I mean, am I really a celebrity? I didn't even know the magical world existed until my eleventh birthday. If I were famous, wouldn't I have heard from someone?"  
Draco looked flabbergasted?  
"You mean, you don't even know? About the Dark Lord? About your parents?"  
"Oh, psh, I know about that. I just figured a lot of people die when the magical version of Hitler is running around, so I'm not exactly a special case."  
"Dear Merlin, you don't know anything! Of course you're a special case! You're the boy who lived! You're a legend! How did no one ever tell you this?" He asked, his whisper getting louder as he lost his careful composure.  
Hermione thumped him on the back of the head.  
"Quiet! I thought the point was to not let everyone know we're here?" She warned.  
The pureblooded boy huffed, but calmed down.  
"Now, since we've already covered that we don't know every single thing that goes on in the Magical World we just entered, maybe you should explain to us what being the "Boy Who Lived" means," she said.  
Draco rolled his eyes, but made room when Minnie sat next to him, Harry on her other side.  
"Okay, fine. So the Dark Lord was in power since way before we were born, and he was close to taking over. But one night he went to destroy a family that had been personally responsible for a lot of the resistance-"  
"The Potters?" Minnie asked.  
He nodded.  
"Nobody really agrees on how, but my Dad said he just walked in the front door, and killed Harry's parents with the Killing Curse-"  
"Wait, the what?" Harry interjected.  
Draco snorted with disappointment.  
"In the magical world we have these three spells, called Unforgivables. Basically, if you cast any of them on a person, you automatically go to Azk- uh, Prison, for life. The Killing Curse is unforgivable because there's no way to shield from it or counterattack. You either dodge it, or you die, no in between."  
Hermione nodded for him to continue.  
"So he used the Killing Curse on your parents, and they died. But then he got to you, a little baby, and everyone agrees that the Killing Curse was used on you, but something happened. Nobody knows how, but you lived, and the Dark Lord died, and the war ended. Ever since you've basically been the most important person in the Wizarding world-"  
"Wait, seriously?! Are you kidding?" Harry said, an odd look in his eyes.  
Hermione glanced over, concerned.  
"Harry? What is it?"  
"Now I know you're just messing with me. I'm not important. Definitely not enough that anyone in the wizarding world cares about me. I'm not this Boy Who Lived, I'm just a kid sorry enough to have his parents murdered, and I've been paying for it since," he said, his voice was calm, but his eyes were blazing, his mouth held in an angry line.  
She nearly flinched at the look in his eye, but instead moved closer, and touched his shoulder gently.  
"Harry,"  
Slowly, reluctantly, he looked her in the eye.  
"What do you mean by "paying for it"?"  
He glared at Draco's direction, and the pureblood held up his hands in the universal sign of surrender.  
"I hope you're wrong, Malfoy, because if this is how you lot treat celebrities, I don't think I like it much here."   
"What the hell are you talking about, Potter?" The blonde asked, surprisingly calm. She'd half expected him to become angry.  
Harry looked around, suddenly aware of their new housemates, sitting or standing around just out of earshot as they caught up with their year mates.  
"I won't talk about this here," Harry muttered.  
Hermione nodded, and stopped Draco's frustrated response.  
"Alright then, not here. And not tonight. We'll talk about this tomorrow. I know a place where we can go."  
Draco nodded, and tugged on Harry's shoulder, leading him towards the First Year Boy's dorm.

Hermione had research to do.

The girls dormitory was lavish, not more than she'd ever experienced, but definitely more than she liked. She'd read the Hogwarts rules, and destruction of property was punishable by Detentions, and well, everything in the Slytherin Girl's dorm seemed especially breakable. Luxuriously soft beds and crystal hangings and gorgeous paintings were great and all, but she was supposed to live in this place, and how they expected it all to survive a year with her, she didn't know. One thing was clear, she needed to find a safe, slightly less destructible place to work.

The three other beds in her room were empty at the moment, but the names on the trunks read "Pansy", "Daphne", and "Tracey". She knew that Pansy Parkinson was the girl who'd attached herself to Draco at first opportunity, he'd certainly complained about her enough. But the other two…she didn't know. It'd be interesting, at least, rooming with them.  
A few minutes she'd stripped off her pristine uniform and was wearing work clothes. She didn't expect to destroy anything in her little test, but it couldn't hurt. Luckily she'd already tested a handy little spell to repair damage.  
She pulled her Stark Phone out of her pocket, a toolkit out of her trunk, and started to dismantle it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO UHM YEAH. This would be the part where I launch into pitiful apologies and explanations but honestly I have no excuse so yeah. I suck. Sorry. HOWEVER I HAVEN'T BEEN DOING COMPLETELY NOTHING IN MY ABSENCE. I have expanded on my plans for this story, and the sequence at the beginning of this chapter is only the very beginning of this. I'm sure most of you can guess where I'm heading with that, but meh. But we got (Little) Harry's perspective, and that's always fun!  
> So, was the Madeline reference too cheesy or what? XD I was really proud of myself when I wrote that part…a couple months ago.  
> Opinions and hate mail (regarding my laziness anyways) are welcome.


	10. The Slytherin Trio

More than a few kids were nearly bowled over when Hermione Stark, arriving late to breakfast rushed into the Great Hall. Several of the First years had already begun leaving, hoping to avoid getting lost on the way to their first classes, and as the little brunette bullet rushed inside, there was hardly any time to avoid her.   
Remarkably enough, no first years were harmed in her mad dash; well, excluding Minnie, who nearly made it to the part of Slytherin table where Harry and Draco were seated, only to slam into the Vampire Bat himself, her head of house.  
She groaned softly upon realizing she'd somehow ended up on the floor, only to see the distinctly unamused gaze of Professor Severus Snape staring down at her and groaned much louder.  
"Miss Stark, a young lady of such upbringing as yourself should know better than to run in the halls," he said, his scowl betraying an intense dislike.  
She stood up, frowning, and he handed her a sheet of parchment.  
Her schedule.  
"I expect this will be the last time I have to correct you," he said, with an air of finality, before turning on his heel and exiting the hall, his robes billowing behind him dramatically.  
Minnie stared after the strange man, wondering how she'd managed to have a teacher who was just as much of a drama queen as Wanda was.  
"Are you going to stand there all day looking like some sort of imbecile or are you going to sit?" She heard Draco hiss, and abruptly remembered why she' been sprinting through the hall in the first place.  
"Oh my God, you guys are not gonna believe what I did last night!" She squealed as she moved to sit on the bench between Harry and Draco.  
She pulled her cellphone out of a pocket in her robe, and pressed the ON button.  
She grinned brightly at her two friends as the screen lit, something it wouldn't have done the day previous.  
"Isn't it great?!" She squealed as she tapped on the screen. Draco sent a confused look to Harry, who shrugged.  
After a moment Minnie noticed the distinct lack of awed gasping or just general exclamations of how awesome she was, which is exactly what she was expecting.  
She glanced from Harry to Draco, and felt highly offended when their expressions looked closer to confusion than awe.  
"Maybe you should explain what exactly is so impressive about your phone," Harry suggested.  
"Is that what that is?" Draco said, looking at the thin device quizzically.  
Hermione sighed heavily.  
"Electronics don't mix with magic very well. It's usually alright when I'm home, Dad made this specifically so that my magic wouldn't fry the circuitry. But as soon as I got on the train it stopped working, which I guess makes sense; we've never tested the technology in an environment where magical people were so prevalent. But last night I was working on it. I thought maybe if I found the right combination of magic and science I could make it work anyways. And I did! This is excellent progress!" She insisted, but the two boys still lacked enough enthusiasm for her to be satisfied.  
"Look, I'll call my Dad right now!" She said, dialing the number into her touch screen.  
Immediately the call went to voicemail, the recording of her Father promising to call back "When I can bring myself to give a damn," and the call ended. Even worse, as soon as the connection ended the device sparked and started smoking.  
Hermione dropped it with a shriek and the people sitting close to them leapt away from the burning mess.  
Within moments Professor McGonagall swept in, banishing the smoking remains of her Stark Phone and sending the sharpest of looks her way.  
A well placed pout and her specially weaponized puppy dog eyes stopped her from being sent to Dumbledore's office, but it didn't lessen the absolute embarrassment she felt at having her project fail in front of the entire hall. Her own housemates especially. The upper years smirked at her the whole way when Draco and Harry led her out of the hall.  
   
@TSE@   
   
Peter watched in silent confusion as his best friend's dad wordlessly took over his room, throwing things into boxes and taking down his photographs from the walls as if he intended to move into the room himself.  
It wasn't until Tony started moving his bed that Peter decided he probably deserved an explanation.  
"Uhm, Mr. Stark? What are you doing to my room?"  
Tony glanced up with a broad grin, but didn't stop rearranging his room.  
"Come on Petey, what'd I tell ya? Mr. Stark was my dad," he said cheekily, and Peter wondered why it felt as if he were the oldest person in the room.  
"Uh…Tony? What are you doing?"  
All of his things had been pushed to one side of the room, leaving two of the walls bare and a good third of the floor space empty. Tony was scanning the newly created space with a critical eye, and Peter didn't like that look any more when Tony made it, considering that whenever he saw it on Hermione it definitely meant trouble for him.  
"Merry Christmas kid, you're getting a lab for your birthday," Tony said as if that was supposed to explain everything. Nevermind that it was September and he was pretty sure that every time Tony had offered to build a lab for Peter previously, Aunt May had forbidden it. So why Tony was here now and even how he'd gotten into the house was a mystery.  
As excited as those words made him, he was honestly left even more confused.  
"Uh. Mr.- Tony…where, exactly?"  
Tony continued to scan the room, then turned to face Peter, and shrugged.  
"I dunno. How do you feel about having a basement?" He asked, turning back to Peter's blank walls.  
If he could see the Pre-teen's face he'd know the Parker boy was seriously considering if the Billionaire might be insane.  
"…Tony?"  
"Yeah kid?"  
"Does Aunt May even know you're here?"  
The look the grown man gave him said it all.  
   
@TSE@  
   
Lessons with Wanda didn't hold a candle to actual classes in an actual magic school. Sure, they were mostly teaching them silly things like turning matches into needles (because really, when would she need that skill in a fight?), but she was surrounded by people who were just as magic as she was, her same age too, and she quickly found out the best thing she had missed out on by leaving regular school.  
It was absolute chaos.  
Keeping any number of children in a room together, and tasking them with learning could only lead to trouble, and that went double for Hogwarts, a magic school. It started with Potions, taught by their own head of house.  
She could tell from a glance that Professor Snape was not a person she wanted to be on the bad side of. Unfortunately, it seemed a bit too late for that, if that morning was any indication. Of course, that was before he swept into the Evil Lair called the Potions classroom and immediately glared at…at Harry?   
Her new friend looked like the picture of innocent interest, but there was something in his eyes that made Minnie sit up at attention.   
Snape immediately turned a stream of questions on Harry, all of which she knew for a fact were found at the very last chapters of their First Year books. No normal student would've read that far ahead.  
Harry tilted his head with a considering look on his face, his eyebrows furrowed as if he were legitimately trying to produce an answer, and shrugged.  
"I don't know, Sir," he said.  
Hermione frowned. A sour personality was one thing, but Snape was practically bullying Harry, even more so than everyone else.  
She raised her own hand, pouting fiercely when the bat-like Potions Master glanced at her and promptly ignored her.  
Sneering at her new friend Professor Snape made a scathing remark about abusing his fame, which she knew for certain wasn't true, if only for the fact that Harry had hadn't once mentioned his own apparent fame, others always did for him.  
   
"For your information Mr. Potter, Asphodel and Wormwood would combine to create-" a true Slytherin would never show shock on his face, and as such, the Gryffindors would never see the utter surprise the Slytherins could see in Snape's eyes as the answer refused to leave his mouth.  
Harry remained the epitome of innocence, a wide-eyed confusion on his face when the belligerent Professor found himself tongue-tied, but Hermione had seen his lips move, saying something under his breath that couldn't possibly be heard.  
   
"Sir? What does Asphodel and Wormwood create? Did you forget?"  
Snickers broke out from both sides of the room as Snape's expression darkened into one that was decidedly less than polite.  
Hermione and Draco shared a wide-eyed look.  
The professor opened his mouth once more to spit out a reply but once again his mouth refused to form words. His mouth snapped shut with a click and with an angry flourish pulled out his wand and began casting some sort of spell on himself.   
Hermione might have been impressed by the wordless magic, which by her understanding was not something the common wizard could perform, but mostly she just itched with the temptation to comment on the "foolish wandwaving" he'd just finished badmouthing.   
After a minute or two, having failed to regain his speech, Professor Snape sent Harry a rather murderous glance and stormed back out of the room.   
The other Slytherins looked at little Harry Potter suspiciously, while a cheer went up among the Gryffindors. Harry simply shrugged and opened his potions book studiously.  
After a few minutes the first years decided that their Professor apparently did not plan on returning, and they weren't going to lose the opportunity to skip the so called scariest class.  
As soon as the others had left , Harry put his book away and moved to leave as well, but Minnie grabbed his arm and dragged him back.  
"Oh no you don't mister," she admonished, smirking when Draco nodded in agreement from his seat.  
"You did something, and we wanna know how," she said.  
If she hadn't just seen the look used on Snape, Minnie would've never guessed his innocent face was fake.  
Draco snorted.  
"You're good Potter, I'll give you that, but we're not stupid."  
"Of course you're not stupid Draco," Harry said in a surprisingly patronizing tone that caused the blonde to roll his eyes.  
Minnie turned his attention back to her by placing her hands on her hips and coughing.  
"I'm serious Harry, stop stalling. What did you do to Snape?"  
But the Boy-Who-Lived wouldn't crack.  
"I'm afraid I really have no idea what you guys are talking about. I think it was karma personally, he was being a right git for no apparent reason," he said, his innocent smile slipping into something just a little too devious.  
Minnie's face scrunched up in frustration, and after a moment she threw up her hands.  
"Fine! I'll give you this one, but you did something Harry Potter, and if we're going to be friends, I want in on it," she said with finality, and smirk.  
Their pureblooded friend rolled his eyes, and began to gather his things.  
"Whatever you two. Let's get out of here before Professor Snape decides to come back."  
Harry laughed, and Hermione smiled, but her eyes were determined to unravel the mystery of her new friend.  
Draco led them back to the common room.  
   
@TSE@  
Later in the school year  
   
"Oh shut up you stupid bint, nobody likes a Know-It-All, right Harry?"  
The way Harry Potter chuckled in response might have might have offended her, but Hermione felt no betrayal at his amusement.  
Ron Weasley, though pleasant enough on the train, had become a near constant presence in the last few weeks, and the "Slytherin Trio" were swiftly losing patience for it. He always sat as near to them as possible in class, practically stalked them through the halls, and and appearing in the most odd places such as outside the Slytherin Common Room.  
Draco warned Harry that the redhead's motives were clear- he hoped to ingratiate himself with the Boy-Who-Lived. But Ron's antics were amusing and stupid enough that Harry let him be.  
There was just one problem, however.  
Ron Weasley absolutely hated Hermione Stark. It was odd, considering that the Blood Feud between the Weasleys and Malfoys should've made the blond his obvious enemy, but the ginger wizard could hardly stand the sight of the American witch, and he let her know at every opportunity.  
Sadly for him, Minnie Stark was no slouch. She was every bit of a know-it-all as Weasley claimed, and had a mean streak a mile wide to back it up.  
   
Minnie had finally lost her patience, and Harry, caught in the middle as he was, was more than content to simply watch the show.  
"Ronald," she said with entirely false sweetness, "I don't understand. Am I a "stupid bint", or a "know-it-all"? Surely I can't be both?"  
Snickers erupted in the class as they settled in, waiting for McGonagall to arrive.  
"You know what I think Ronald? I think you're the stupid one, because you see, I'm not just any know-it-all, I'm the know-it-all. I am certified as one of the smartest ten people currently inhabiting this planet. When I turn 25 I will inherit a company that is so large and influential, I will essentially own more wealth than the entirety of Wizarding England combined. My father is the leading manufacturer of weapons technologies in the world, and I suppose I could threaten you with how well I know how to use them, but I’d rather bring this to your attention- he deals with technology, and believe me when I say technology and magic do not mix. Do you know what my father did to remedy this Weasley? He hired the Scarlet Witch. And she’s been my tutor since I was six years old.”  
There was a gaping silence as the classroom processed that information, and she grinned. It was Draco that had revealed to her the interesting fact that Wanda Maximoff was a well known and rather intimidating figure in the magic community- something she’d definitely be interrogating her about later. But for now it came in handy.  
   
She laughed. “Of course, that’s not even mentioning the power the good old fashioned money gives. My father could hire every lawyer in the Wizarding world if he felt so inclined. Would you like to guess what that means?”  
   
She asked, pausing in her quite terrifying rant to stare him in his reddening face.  
"It means that I win. In Combat, in Magic, in Wealth, and certainly in Intelligence, and if you ever deign to speak to me in such an unacceptable way again I will curse you most violently, and then sue you and your entire family so completely the Weasleys will be known as personal vassals to the Stark family until the end of time. So I suggest you shut up, you stupid bint, nobody likes an imbecile."  
   
A surprised chuckle turned the attention from the terribly embarrassed look on Weasley's face to Professor McGonagall, who stood in the doorway that connected her office to the classroom with a hand over her heart.  
"Miss Stark, ten points to Slytherin for finding an effective way to deal with bullies, although I would suggest you leave the Weasley family out of your revenge, I assure you they are quite nice people.  
Mr. Weasley-"  
Ron looked up with watery eyes, and Hermione snickered, as the boy appeared ready to cry at the prospect of further punishment.  
"I will not deduct points, but only because I'm afraid Ms. Stark's little rebuttal is quite enough punishment."  
With a bowed head Ron moved his things to the furthest corner of the room and remained silent.  
"Now then, if that's settled, open your textbooks to page 96."  
Draco was staring at her sort of warily.  
"Can-can you really do all that?" He whispered  
Minnie chuckled.  
"Of course not, but if Weasley's stupid enough to think I'm some sort of God he'll leave me alone won't he?"  
Harry snorted loudly.  
   
Hermione's little speech had one unexpected side-effect.  
   
"Lady Stark!"  
"My Liege!"  
"Goddess of Tricks!"  
"Mistress of My Heart!"  
Draco had long dissolved into a very inelegant giggling fit, and Harry was struggling not to crack, but Minnie simply scowled as the Weasley Twins proceeded their loyalty and undying love to her.  
"Stop it! You're being ridiculous!" She hissed, cheeks reddening slightly, and those around them at Slytherin table laughed. Undeterred, Fred and George launched into a rather ridiculous song about the "fair Queen Hermione" slaying dragons and rescuing the "damselled" Harry Potter. That ended Harry's laughter quite abruptly, but he was still grinning entirely too much.  
At Harry's encouragement the Twins, though Third years, often found time to cause chaos among the Slytherins first years, and as much as Minnie refused to admit it, they weren't completely unwelcome.  
   
TSE  
   
Dear Dad,  
For the love of explosions please please get me out of here, I can't possibly do this. The entire Wizarding World is trapped in the middle ages and I swear there isn't a fully functioning brain between them. As soon as I was settled on the train I discovered my phone wouldn't work. In fact, nothing works. I hope you get this. Owl post is ridiculously slow, and frankly it'll be a miracle of the poor thing even makes it across an ocean, but Draco insists magical owls can handle it.  
Please Save Me,  
Minnie  
   
Dear Daddy,  
Did you not get my last letter? Maybe I haven't waited long enough. Draco says I should stop worrying so much.  
Speaking of which I've come back into contact with Draco Malfoy, although I suppose it's safe to assume you knew I would. That's the secret right? The Malfoys are magic? I can't imagine why you wouldn't tell me, I was beginning to think they were part of the Mafia or something, and frankly that would've been far more interesting.  
We've been sorted into the same House, Slytherin (the cunning and ambitious one, you remember), so we see a lot of each other. He's just as uppity as ever, but at least he's clever, which puts him miles ahead of some of these other children.  
Apparently there's a bit of prejudice against muggleborn kids, and that's a damn shame because the kids in Slytherin in particular have a sort of hierarchy about it. Draco's at the top, because he's Pureblooded, and I would be at the bottom, but I make sure to remind them how much richer I am than them, since they don't really care how smart I am. There's also the fact that I'm Draco's friend, but really, my other friend is even more important.  
His name is Harry Potter, and he's very famous here.  
Somehow, when he was a baby, he killed a Dark Lord, which is a very powerful wizard who uses Dark Magic. He's kind of like a superhero, with an origin story and everything.   
He's much friendlier than Draco, but people know not to cross him because Harry loves pranks.  
He won't let me join in yet, but when he does I'll let you know.  
Classes are fine, sort of easy, but I suppose that's what I get for studying so far ahead.  
Love,  
Minnie.  
P.S. This is Harry's owl, Hedwig, please give her some bacon for her trouble.  
P.S.S My things still aren't working. My theory is that places with high populations of wizards are saturated in magic, so the magical interference is much stronger, and I was hoping I could make some alterations to my things, but so far, every experiment has ended in explosions and I'm out of electronic devices, so I'm counting on you to help me Daddy.  
   
Tony felt infinitely relieved as he read his girl's words, and he did reward the owl with bacon, courtesy of J.A.R.V.I.S  
He'd been seriously considering retrieving his daughter after the first letter, but Pepper wouldn't let him, forcing him to wait it out a bit. As expected, she was right, and Minnie was apparently doing much better Hermione was at it yet again, he could tell, causing trouble and plotting to take over the school.  
He couldn't be prouder. Better yet, he'd finally found out why she wasn't answering her phone, and perhaps best of all, he'd been given a project to work on. In the meantime, he figured he had a perfect, if temporary solution.  
Digging a package out of a box labeled "For Minnie" in Wanda's curly hand-writing, he handed it off to the owl.  
"Think you can manage this the whole trip?" He asked, considering the snowy white owl.  
With a hoot and what appeared to be rolling eyes, Hedwig took off through the window.  
Muttering around magical animals Tony wandered downstairs to his lab to begin.  
   
~TSE~  
   
“Troll! In the Dungeon! Thought You ought to know…”  
There was a terrible silence, but she could see the students slowly easing out of their shock into what was definitely rising panic.  
“Stop! Please remain calm,” Dumbledore said as he stood.  
“Prefects, please take your students to their dorms-“  
“A-hem!” Draco coughed loudly, a highly offended look on his face.  
Dumbledore glanced at him in surprise as if he’d completely forgotten about the Slytherin table and sighed.  
“Ah yes, of course. Slytherins please follow your prefects to the Library instead.  
And with that they were dismissed.  
They filed out of the Great Hall, following their respective Prefects, when Hermione suddenly stopped. Was that-?  
Her friends paused, glancing back at her with confusion.  
“Ah, Minnie? What’s wrong?” Harry asked.  
She sprinted back to the hallway they just past, and sure enough, two students were rounding the corner, going, based on their Gryffindor robes, in the exact opposite direction they were supposed to.  
“What the hell is Weasel doing?!” Draco hissed, having seen the red hair of one.  
Hermione and Harry smirked at each other.  
“Well let’s find out,” she said checking the hallway for anyone that might spot them and dashing after the Gryffindors.  
Draco and Harry soon followed, but not without the blonde rolling his eyes in exasperation.  
“Honestly I thought you’d be the one acting like a stupid Gryffindor, Potter,” he said before sprinting after their friend.  
   
She was surprised to find that the other Gryff was none other than Parvati Patil, who she’d always figured had a better head on her shoulders than Ronald, even if that assumption was based solely on the fact that her sister was a Ravenclaw. She found them huddled behind a suit of armor, arguing furiously enough that they hadn’t noticed her arrival.   
“Well? Go on then! You’re the one that dragged me out here!”  
“Because you’re a bloody ponce! This is your fault Weasley!”  
“Are you bloody joking, I don’t want to die!”  
“Hmpf! If the troll doesn’t kill you, I will!”  
Draco and Harry caught up to her and watched the two Gryffs in silence for a moment, before Draco could no longer help himself.  
“I know Gryffindors are supposed to be positively brainless but this is ridiculous. I’d expect this from Weasley maybe, he’s probably just trying to find the troll so he can have someone to talk to who understands him, but Patil? Really? I thought you had brains,” he drawled.  
Parvati scowled.  
“Don’t lump me in with him, Malfoy. Weasley here insulted my sister, called her a know-it-all, and she went to crying in the bathroom, and now she doesn’t know there’s a troll loose, so Weasley here is going to retrieve her, and then I’m going to bash his face in for being such a prat.”  
“I’m going to-!”  
“Ronald Weasley you’re a greater idiot than I ever could’ve imagined.” Hermione cut in, and she would’ve set in on another rant about his failings as a wizard and human being, when a loud crash interrupted them.  
Harry whipped out his wand without preamble and cast disillusionment on the lot of them, and despite the circumstances Hermione grinned with pride that he’d learned the spell.  
They watched, silent, as the Troll appeared down the hall, and lumbered into the bathroom in question.   
Parvati’s eyes widened, and Hermione slapped a hand over her mouth before she could manage to scream.  
“Alright we need a plan,” Harry whispered, and Draco dragged an agitated hand through his hair.  
“Trolls are nearly impervious to magic, the only magic known to harm them is of class 8 difficulty and above which is taught only in texts of Family magic and through curriculums of Mastery. The only known wizard able to kill a troll with less was Gerald the Great who killed a troll by overpowering a cutting charm so severely it decapitated the troll, however the magical backlash left him a squib. More on Gerald the Great on page 432. The troll is the only known magical creature who-“  
“Minnie! Stop! You can stop!”  
Hermione bit her tongue and looked at her friends apologetically.  
“Sorry, I’m nervous, sorry.”  
“I know, ok. How about subduing it can we knock it out maybe-“  
A terrified scream echoed down the hall.  
“Nevermind! Come on!” Harry said, sprinting down the hall.  
   
~TSE~  
“What in Merlin’s name happened here?!” Professor McGonagall asked, her eyes furious as she took in the scene.  
The girl’s bathroom was utterly demolished, the Patil twins were huddled in the far corner, crying. Draco Malfoy was unconscious, being tended to a bruised Hermione Stark and a bleeding Harry Potter. And in the center a Mountain Troll lay dead, a massive needle, of all things, stabbed grotesquely into one of it’s eyes. Only Ronald Weasley seemed completely unscathed, so the Head of Gryffindor turned to him.  
“Well? Mr. Weasley? What happened?”  
The redhead stuttered unintelligibly for a moment, before blurting “It was all Their fault!” Pointing to the Slytherin Trio huddled on the floor and bursting into tears.  
Hermione glanced up, obviously put out by Weasley’s choice of words and stood.  
“Ma’am if you want to be really specific, it’s Ron’s fault we’re here. He’s an absolute bully, and after classes he teased Padma here so badly that she ran to the bathroom to cry. By the time we were aware of the troll, Padma hadn’t left the bathroom, and had no knowledge of the danger, so like any good sister, Parvati went to find her, and took Ron along to convince him to apologize.” At this she glared the Gryffindor boy and crossed her arms.  
“The only reason we’re here is because we caught them, and were planning on bringing them to their Prefects to keep them out of trouble, but before we could, the troll entered the bathroom. We felt we had no choice but to attempt to rescue our classmate, and thank Merlin, we did it without anyone being seriously hurt. We would however, like to take our friends to see the nurse.”  
Flabbergasted, Minerva nodded in agreement, and let the children file out, levitating Draco to move him herself. But just before Minnie left the Professor touched her shoulder.  
“Right now I imagine, is not time for the entire story, but a needle, Miss Stark?”  
The Slytherin girl smiled brilliantly.  
“Transfiguration is a highly useful skill professor.”  
Minerva shook her head. It was damn shame the girl wasn’t a Gryffindor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I almost named this chapter something different. But then most of ya'll missed entirely the hint I dropped last chapter, so I decided to go a bit subtle-r with it, since it's apparently a mystery now.  
> Either way Harry's already a very different Harry, and Minnie just loves to bring out the troublemaker in him.   
> Draco's just kind of, dragged along for the ride.  
> And of course, this isn’t how First year ends, but the rest will be a flashback in next chapter.  
> And in case you guys were wondering, this story's definitely going to be undergoing some editing soon. I've been re-reading and there's a couple cringe-worthy errors.  
> Oh! And if you like Ron, don't worry, he'll be redeemed later on. If you don't like Ron, this one's for you!  
> And finally there was another reference in here, and if you’ve seen the show it’s not at all subtle. XD  
> And for real’s now finally, because I didn’t make this clear and don’t feel like fixing it, the first letter is sent by a school owl, the second is by Hedwig, as for why they both arrived around the same time…ah idk. But the second letter is written maybe two weeks after the first one. Woo. Plot hole closed. XD  
> (Also phew I finally got this account up to date. If somethings wacky or out of order you guys are not allowed to tell me for at least a week I don't wanna hear it XD)  
> Hopefully a real new chapter will be incoming.


	11. Professional Trouble Magnets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg formatting this chapter for more than one site was hell omg. And to Gindjurra on Ao3: Your comments made my day, I hope you keep reading.

 

Not long after Halloween some Gryffindor boys landed themselves in the Hospital Wing, after an encounter with whatever violent death awaited in the third floor corridor. They lived, but the rumor was they'd been sworn to a magically binding oath by the Headmaster not to tell, to prevent any repeats of the accident. Hermione doubted it, more likely they were scared absolutely shitless.

One of them was Ron Weasley, so she felt it was safe to assume that no intelligent person could repeat that incident, but that didn't stop her curiosity from being peaked, so she determined she'd endeavor to find out.

"The Lady Stark graces us with her presence!"

"How may we serve her Bossiness?"

With a scowl Hermione sent a Stinging hex at the twin she knew to be Fred, but he dodged out of the way with ease.

"Stop being so ridiculous," she chastised, giving a scrutinizing glance to the Great Hall around them. No one seemed to be listening, but that didn't mean they couldn't be overheard.

"Muffliato," she muttered, flicking her wand.

"I just wanted to ask if you two could help me find some information."

"About?" They asked together.

She rolled her eyes at their oddness, but pressed on.

"I want to know what's in the third floor corridor."

The twins shared devilish grins.

"Easy, it's a Cerberus. But that's not the interesting part. It's guarding something."

Interested, she gestured for them to continue.

"Hey, we don't have that kind of access. We're crazy and all, but Hellhounds are kind of beyond us."

She scowled, and moved to cancel the spell.

"Oh, Minnie, you have such little faith in us."

"And?"

"A beastie that dangerous at Hogwarts? Definitely belongs to Hagrid. He doesn't like us much-"

"An understatement if I ever heard one."

"But he'll love to share his wisdom with a cute lil' firstie like you. And he can't keep a secret to save his life.

She smiled innocently.

"I owe you guys," she promised, dropping the privacy spell and sauntering off.

"Harry," her voice sing-songy as she approached her friend on the opposite side of the room.

"I need a favor."

~TSE~

"Where's Harry?" she asked, not even looking up from her textbook.

She honestly should've finished this essay a while ago, but she'd been busy with her experimenting, and well, it wasn't due for another thirty minutes.

"With Dumbledore," the Malfoy heir sneered, sitting down across from her.

She rolled her eyes. Typical. Why the Headmaster felt the need to have meetings with Harry almost monthly, she'd never know. Perks of being the Boy-Who-Lived she guessed.

"Dumbledore isn't out to get us just because we're Slytherins," she said despite this, just like she did every time Draco seemed ready to rant about the "Nutty Old Bastard."

"Of course you think that, you're muggleborn. You're basically an honorary Gryffindor anyways. Potter too. We might know you're just as much a Snake as the rest of us, but that doesn't really matter outside this common room, does it?"

She huffed at his stubbornness, but didn't press. "I suppose he'll meet us in class then. Did you bring me the ingredients?"

He passed her a package wrapped in brown paper, the apothecary's label was stamped on one side. She grinned, and Draco's face paled slightly. That was never a good sign.

"Why are we making Nullifying Draught anyways?"

"My Dad's idea. I want to come up with a variation that doesn't cause lasting damage. A bit weaker too. If I can create a potion that temporarily negates magic without harming people, maybe I can apply that to objects that would normally be magic sensitive. I may need your help on the Arithmancy. We'll see."

"Honestly, Stark, between you and Potter I never get to feel properly superior anymore," he complained, before gathering up her things.

"Come on. You're not making me late to class." She laughed.

~TSE~

"Stark, do us all a favor, and do not talk," the rather slimy man said with a scowl, moving past her to another student. Hermione's eyes narrowed at his tone, but lowered her hand. She glanced over at Harry, who'd been staring blankly at his potion, counting his stirs.

Suddenly there was a loud bubbling sound, followed by a bang. Harry's formerly neutral expression was suddenly turned up in the smallest of smirks, but no one but her would see it. Behind them, Ronald Weasley's potion had overheated and exploded, covering Snape's entire front just has he moved to judge the work. The surly professor cursed loudly and cancelled the class, but no one but Hermione would know.

It'd been happening all term. Snape just couldn't seem to avoid antagonizing them. He absolutely hated Harry, that much was clear, and Minnie just pressed all his buttons, or at least, that was the best guess they could make. Even Draco seemed to be getting a bit of a cold shoulder from his Godfather, but the Malfoy shrugged it off.

"We're Slytherins, it's not like I'm expecting him to pat my head and say he's proud of me. Besides, apparently not even family can outweigh his hatred for Potter over here," he said, rolling his eyes. Harry didn't have much to say on the matter personally, except sometimes to smirk. To tell the truth, compared to the dramatic Draco and exuberant Minnie, he rarely did much else.

When something finally did break through Snape's disdain of Harry, it caught them all by surprise.

"Quidditch? Well, I read a bit about it when I first started, it is a big part of the culture and all. Why, did you want to know something specific?" Harry snickered, and held up a placating hand.

"Spare me the trivia please, I was only asking because-" Draco suddenly stormed into the common room looking like he'd just seen a ghost for the first time all over again.

"You're on the Quidditch team?!" He said, his voice sort of shrill. "Yeah what he said." The Boy Who Lived had a smile on his face that spoke of mischief, and only grew wider when his friends' faces told him exactly what they thought of this news. Hermione looked thoroughly unimpressed, Draco looked aghast.

"Um, Draco? Are you okay?" Minnie asked, reaching to touch her friend's shoulder.

"Harry," he bit out between clenched teeth.

"I desperately need for you to NOT be so damn good at everything! Bloody hell!" He said, throwing up his hands in the air, and storming out the way he came.

His friends snickered at his dramatics.

Draco of course, quickly got over it, but most surprising was the suddenly subdued behavior of their Head of House. Suddenly Harry was able to get higher than an A, and the snarky remarks lessened. Slowly but surely, the strange accidents eased up as well, but if Snape noticed the correlation, he didn't mention it. Who would've known that Quidditch would be the way into the bitter man's heart? Sort of?

~TSE~

"Minnie! My precious cinnamon roll! I've missed you so much!"

The image of her Dad was strangely unclear, and she realized he was in motion.

"You're not driving, are you?" She asked, eyes narrowing. She thought he'd agreed not to accept her "calls" when distracted.

Wanda had sent her a scrying mirror. It was enchanted to be able not only to view whoever she wanted, but also to speak to them. Tony described it like getting a "cute little hallucination", so with that in mind, she'd gotten Professor Flitwick's assistance (and Wanda's permission) to alter it, so that if she tried to "call" someone, they'd have to verbally agree before it manifested.

The last thing she needed was to enable her father's recklessness any more.

" Happy's driving. We're heading out to the airport. I have a military demonstration tomorrow."

If possible, her scowl deepened.

"Why you have to go into an active warzone just to show off your projects is beyond me. They have test sites for a reason. You could probably blow up your fancy fireworks in Nebraska or something, and the only terrorists you'd have to worry about would be redneck militias," she said offhandedly.

It aggravated her, but she was still 12. There were only so many things she could bully him out of doing.

Tony stuck his tongue out at her, and she thought she could hear Happy snort.

"No worries Baby Bear, we're presenting the Honey Badger tomorrow. I'll be snug as a bug in a rug."

Hermione grimaced.

"I can't tell if it's the loneliness or the old age that's causing this insanity of yours," she deadpanned.

Her dad clutched at his chest dramatically.

"Anyways," she ignored him. "I suppose that's acceptable. But just let it be known that if you get blown up by extremists I'll Frankenstein you back together, and then I'll turn you into a toad just for the giggles."

Despite his grin his eyes were sober. "I know Minnie, I'll be on a plane back to the States by tomorrow night.

She nodded. "And I'll be calling you."

"Now, what did you need? Genius advice from your dear old Dad? Could this be about a boy perhaps?" he asked, wriggling his eyebrows outrageously.

"I mean I was going to ask you about the potential for anti-magic casings on electronics, but now that you mentioned it-"

"Minnie!" he gasped, only half-outraged.

"Then don't ask Daddy, honestly," she teased, smiling softly.

He pouted, but pulled his phone into view; he tapped furiously for a few moments before he answered. "Ok, so I attempted something similar back when you were still my little Cuddlebug-"

"Daddy! Oh my God," she sighed.

Tony snorted. "Teenagers. Anyways I tried a few different elements, and the most promising was Palladium. I actually cased a lot of Stark tech in that stuff , even tried making our tracker bracelets out of it, and it worked all right, but long term exposure started causing you headaches, so obviously it didn't work out. The way Wanda explained it, the metal is magical itself somehow, and it was binding your magical core any time it touched you. So it's possible sure, but it was just safer to make everything out of sturdier materials and just hope your magic wouldn't eat through it.

"I'll send you a print out of my notes since your witchy nonsense doesn't exactly connect to the cloud, he said, tone half-complaining.

She rolled her eyes but grinned anyways. Thanks Daddy. I'll be looking into it."

"No problem. Anything else?"

She bit her lip, and after glancing around the seemingly empty room, sighed. Lifting a privacy ward she gave Tony her best "This is Serious" look.

"I need you to look into Harry. He's hiding something, and I'm worried."

Her dad nodded. "Way ahead of you. I've only got into public record so far, but I see what you mean. Barely any school records, no doctor visits, no online presence. You sure the kid's name isn't Bond?"

Hermione's eye twitched. As far as her Dad was concerned, "Public Record" was apparently anything that didn't require access to a secret government database. Whatever.

"I'll keep looking and get back to you, alright?"

"Yes sir. Thanks Daddy."

"Any time cupcake." Hermione closed the connection, and Tony went back to playing with his phone, only to make Happy jump with a loud gasp a minute later.

"It was about a boy! Holy shit!"

~TSE~

Harry slid into the space between Draco and Minnie at the Slytherin table for Lunch looking for all the world like the cat who ate the canary.

"Draco, if you would," Hermione muttered.

Without a word, he cast the privacy spells, and the students on either side of their little trio turned their attention away, Confunded.

"You were right, Hagrid did know, but he wasn't going to tell me outright. He did tell me how to put a Cerberus to sleep, but no way was he going to give up what exactly was down there," he explained.

Minnie sighed. "That's good I guess. If worst comes to worst we can go down there ourselves."

"I'm not done you know," Harry stopped her mind from slipping into planning mode.

"He didn't tell me exactly what was down there, but that doesn't mean I don't know."

"Well? You can't possibly mean to keep us in suspense Potter! Tell us!" Draco sneered.

Giving them a glimpse of what McGonagall sullenly called the "James Potter" grin, he calmly took a sip of pumpkin juice, and sat back.

"Hagrid told me whatever's down there belongs to Nicholas Flamel, and it's being hidden so that Dark Wizards won't be able to steal it, which means-" "

It's the Philosopher's Stone," Minnie gasped.

"And the Dark Lord wants it," Draco said.

The three of them shared a grim look.

"Well damn, I suppose we're actually involved now then."

~TSE~

Draco let out a horrified sound as he looked down at his ruined clothes. Cerberus slobber, feathers from those damned keys, and Merlin forbid he ever find out what kind of residue that damn troll might have left on him. And don't even get him started on the Chess set! There was dust all over him, and the bloody thing had tried to kill him! If he didn't think his father would punish him for acting like a "foolish Gryffindor" he'd be planning his letter of complaint right now. Unfortunately, he had walked into a death trap, and he wasn't supposed to even know about the Philosopher's stone. But what could he do? It'd been frightfully easy to learn exactly what was hidden on the third floor corridor, and not much harder to learn exactly who would want it. The blood traitors could say what they wanted about the Malfoy family, but his parents weren't stupid or insane, and those were the only type of people who'd possibly want the Dark Lord to return. That didn't mean his parents wouldn't kill him (or ground him at least) when they found out about him running around adventuring with the Boy Who Lived.

He shuddered slightly at the thought, then flinched when Minnie elbowed him in the stomach.

"Hey!"

"Draco! This is not the time! Stop whining and help me!" She shouted, gesturing wildly to where she was trying to transfigure some of the junk around them into a ladder.

With a huff, he pulled out his wand. "Levicorpus," he incanted, and with a shrill squeak she began to rise somewhat shakily, into the air.

With a blush Minnie realized she was lucky to have put her jeans on before coming down here, especially when his concentration wavered for second, and she found herself upside down.

"Malfoy!" she shouted, only barely restraining herself from cursing. With a quick apology she was righted again, and shortly she was lifting the trap door.

Fluffy was thankfully still asleep, but she wasn't about to tempt fate. As soon as she had both feet on the ground she was levitating Draco up, and soon they had left the room and it's guardian behind. In the quiet of the hallway it was like the truth of the situation finally hit them.

They'd escaped the traps, made it to the next to final room, and even now Harry was trying to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone. But this wasn't an adventure anymore. Most likely Quirrell was on his way, and if they didn't bring help for Harry back before the Defense Professor got there then... Minnie sprinted faster, Draco pushing himself to keep up. They reached the Headmaster's Office only to realize they had no way to alert Dumbledore and get inside. They quickly gave up trying to find the candy that might be the password, instead just making as much commotion as possible, screaming and throwing a few spells as the gargoyle for good measure.

"What in Morgana's name is going on here?!" A sneering voice asked.

And there was Professor Snape, stalking towards them looking like some kind of Vampire Lord.

Hermione froze, unsure. He'd been better lately. They'd ruled him out as the suspect. But she still remembered that Severus Snape was no saint, and even Draco couldn't be sure if he were loyal to the Dark Lord or not.

Did she want to make the gamble that he wasn't working with Quirrell?

She couldn't be sure what he saw in her expression, but his face rapidly drained of fury, and he stepped in front of the gargoyle.

"Cauldron Cakes," he said gruffly, and with the sound of stone scraping together the door slid open, revealing the staircase to the Headmaster's office. The two first years didn't bother questioning it, simply scurrying up the steps. Neither did they question why the Headmaster was in his office at this time of night, clad in the loudest pajamas either of them had ever seen, but assuredly waiting for them.

"Harry's attempting to get the Philosopher's Stone before Professor Quirrell can steal it," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. In fact, as she said it, her mind was working more clearly than it had before, free of some of the adrenaline that had been driving her since they'd been forced to leave Harry back at the last room. Suddenly she was making connections that had evaded her earlier, and a feeling of sick dread settled in her stomach.

'How could some of the most intelligent, powerful, adult wizards fail to protect such an object from the first thief who endeavored to steal it? From First years?'

'Why would anyone arrange a series of puzzles for an item that wasn't meant to be reached, when wards and even a simple lock and key apparently would've proved more effective?'

'How did we manage to get so far without so much as an alarm being set off?'

'Hell, why tell us where to look in the first place? A notice me not spell would be plenty enough to ensure no student even ventured to that hallway.'

"Thank you for informing me of this," Dumbledore was saying but blood was roaring in Minnie's ears. She didn't hear the Headmaster instruct Professor Snape to take them to the hospital wing, and it didn't register when Snape raged at them the whole way there.

They'd been suspicious of Snape, unimpressed with Flitwick. McGonnagall hadn't listened to them, and they'd frankly forgotten about Sprout. But then Quirrell turned out to be the thief. Or worse. And now…Dumbledore?

She could almost hear Draco's "I told you so", but she cold fear was mixing with her adrenaline and tiredness.

Draco pulled her down to sit on a hospital bed, and silently they waited.

It wasn't until an hour later when Dumbledore brought Harry to the Hospital Wing, mostly unharmed, that Minnie felt the tension leave her body.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok some things I didn't get to explain too well in the story: This chapter has clarity issues and I'm sorry, but whatever. One of the biggest deviations is something I didn't even elaborate on but it'll be noticeable next chapter, but just so I don't get the concerned reviews- they acted quickly enough to get there before Quirrell, so they had to do everything first including take out the troll I also thought I'd be finishing First year and the summer but apparently not. But I posted a chapter. So close enough. Draco never explicitly tells them this, but in my mind he admitted pretty early on that he knew the Dark Lord would eventually return because his parents always told him so. So finding out him or his agents is after the stone is an obvious conclusion for them. I plan on actually writing this scene later, because an upcoming chapter is ALL about Harry basically, but we haven't quite got there. Oh, and the Honey Badger is a tank that I made up. It's more or less indestructible, but in my mind it ended up getting decommissioned because the US got cocky with them and the terrorists found a fatal flaw, or even stole enough that they became more harmful than helpful. But mostly it was just a fun name and setting up for the first movie :/ Same with the Palladium name drop. And if anyone is twitchy about how good they are at magic at this point let me just say that this is literally going to shift into a Super!AU eventually (if it doesn't classify already) these brats are going to be powerful. And they're all above average if not genius in at least one area. It's also fun :D And finally, no fandom references (on purpose anyways), unless you count Game of Thrones (I'm doing my best to find a way to justify her saying "Winter is Coming" at some point lol). So instead, I give you memes.


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